Make a Great Witch

im gonna make a great witch

out of clay and ribbons
and give her to you.
i forgot who i was so
i asked the girl next to me and
she let me borrow her eyeliner.

Everything became so clear
when looking through her
smudged eyes
Later she showed me her hip bones
"arent they beautiful"
and danced away
with some lover.

i continued my search for god
searching my hip bones this time
he loves a scavenger hunt,
God does.

Noah's wife didnt get a name
and Lots wife got a salt lick
just for remembering.
I love disobedient women
Was it Jezebel? Eaten by dogs?
"Hey mister man my body is NOT a temple
its a god damn time bomb"
she screamed at the preacher when
she was nine.

Surely that is a false memory
like most of them.
connisseur of memories, I am.
Mine and other peoples.
All those dirty walks
down Bourbon street
Drunken talks
Days i spent
sewing animal bones together with ribbons
hanging them all over.
Yes, that was my attempt at a conversation.

Wait, what?

i hate cleaning i hate cleaning i hate it. i have no idea how things got this messy in the first place but in addition to hating cleanin i hate being messy. i hate putting things in ORDER. It hurts my brain like math i dont know why. And the harder i try to focus on one thing the more frustrated i feel....except for these few things i can super zone in on like drawing or tweezing hairs or peeling paint and then i can zoom in and do it for hours. Is there a name for this? Or if it is normal may i please have a manual to how my brain behaves so i can accomplish all the normal things in life like paying bills and finding my paycheck bc once i left it behind the seat in my car for a week and didnt even THINK about it for days. Dont know how it got there but i suppose things like MONEY are not a part of my immediate reality (tho it should be) bc in my head i am thinking of impossible things and painting. Therefore I..need to grow up already. BUT I TRIED. That is the thing everyone says "just get organized, just focus, just PAY ATTENTNION TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING." well dammit - i am TRYING to! i have been TRYING to since the THIRD GRADE. and i still move things around and wonder if someone broke in and moved things around bc i dont remember putting that there. or ANY of that really.

So I worry about having a roommate I worry about moving i worry about everything. I remember my ex saying "you cant make it without me, no one knows you like i do" and then i go off and leave the STOVE ON or go to bed WITH THE BACK DOOR WIDE OPEN or go out to run errands without my wallet and i wonder if he is right. And i wonder if all the energy i put into trying to be remotely in order is really worth it bc it takes alot of energy and i need that energy in other areas of my life.

and when i suggested to my mom that she has ADD she laughed and said i try to make excuses for people but people are the way they are and you deal with it and go on. Reasons or excuses? what is the differnce? I think it is just bc i want to be better. i have a quirky perfectionist sense, i want to be kinda perfect or at least better than i AM.

Or i suppose i could just "do the best i can" and accept me for me. and hope ya'll accept me for me.

So yesterday i took my dog to Red River with my professor friend and his dog. He got a new camera lens and took some pics of me. I like modeling for him bc it is very comfortable, he feels like family and bc we both have asimilar artistic vision. More about truth than beauty. anyway this one pic was kind of fun so i am posting it.

also, i started drawing a rib cage laced with a ribbon and tied with a bow on the sternum last night but fell asleep before finishing it, so that hopefully will be my next post.

okay back to cleaning.

Stitched and Bound

i worked on this drawing until i fell asleep last night..and.

Writing blogs in  my head, a motor that goes on and on....

The thing about the way i draw bodies is that i dont WANT them to look like they look, i want them to look like they FEEL. and this never goes over well in academia. When i was teaching Drawing I, i insisted that my students keep a sketchbook of drawings that were more intuitive (or whatever they wanted) in addition to the rather rigid classroom assignments. Being a basic course, assignments often consisted of making a value scale or doing gestures of a simple still life. Expression  - of emotions or even the unexplainable moods inside a person - is so VITAL to making good art, that i wanted them to have freedom to create - withOUT the rigid rules- shadows fall to the left, the perspective is measured with a ruler, using your pencil to figure porportion....I wanted to say, here is a tool - charcoal  -  make the marks that your spirit guides you to make.

That was a little too hokey or liberal artsy - so i did give them guidelines..but i wanted them to have a free place to express themselves in addition to the boring assignment of drawing five organic contours. Anyway...

The idea of moving out of my house and making MAJOR LIFE DECISIONS has me feeling a bit o the ANXIETY and cluttery INTRUSIVE thoughts. My anxiety totally transforms itself Things That Can't Possibley Be True...For instance, i am worried about a total stranger (REALTOR) coming to poke around my nest (my house IS my studio) but instead of feeling that, i experience total PANIC and feel like i cant breathe and then i have total physiological response - literally i felt like my blood froze in in the veins in my arms. When i was younger i may have let that thought process continue until i was completely unsure about the NATURE OF REALITY and so confused i barely knew my name but NOW!! on my quest to be a rational  human being I immediately recognize what my brain is doing and start attempting to CONTROl it by well forcing myself to BREATHE slowly like I am the OMMmmmm master. 

I used to LAUGH at self help books but, really some of them have some GOOD advice about controlling anxiety attacks and stuff.

bc really, i got the call from the landlord and within 8 minutes i was outside on the phone with my mom crying bc in 1970 her dad died 3 months after she moved back from Montana and my carpal tunnel problems were going to leave me totally crippled and i could FEEL the tendons and blood and nerves completely BREAKING. and what if all the things i DREW really came true...bc i drew stitched arms for YEARS...and what about ohmgod KARMA.

but then yeah i fought to come up for air. 

oh and i totally had nutritional shakes and bars for food yesterday bc i could not eat "REAL" food but i think im kinda GREAT for making sure i got adequate nutrition by some means or another bc iwant to be strong and FUNCTION..except for that tiny part that wants to be sick and Avaoidant. Gah. okay. 

Dear Ghost of Me

Dear Ghost Girl (that's me),

we have more important things to do than read your self obsessed blogs. we dont even know w hat you are talking about. Of course your blood is not frozen in your veins, that is impossible bc, see, you are moving about and apparently...hyper-vent-i-lating.

Love,

the rest of the functioning world and all of your exes.

bwahahahaha. i crack myself up.

i'm losing it. nuts. bananas. fruitcake. batty. anxiety attack-0!!

no im just freaking out bc they are coming to appraise the house i live in monday at 10 am.

so i can either buy it or move.

and i cant buy it.

so ill be moving.

and i cant afford it.

and i dont know what to do.

and

and

and

i hate eating. i hate an appetite. i hate feeling like i have needles and needles in my veins when i don't - i cant possibley. i hate that i transform ANXIETY into things that cant possible true.

chill. out. now. self.

i hate that i only ever wanted to marry a person that i could never possible marry

i hate that i dont trust anyone else to love me

i hate that i even WANT anyone to love me. I wish i didn't.

i hate that i do not make decisions until there is no other possible choice.

and life moves me over slightly to the left.

and on a larger scale, there is war or two or three and a new president and a bunch of angry people bombing things. and lots of pollution. hi! welcome to earth.

i wish the damn lowercase i would capitalize itself. i swear, ya'll i can spell i just cant TYPE>

fish wish whispers

Sometimes I say I am going to lay off the eating disorder topic and sometimes its all i want to blog about/read about it bc so many of my thoughts go to food and eating and size and shape and the weight of the space AROUND me as it presses down against me. Could it be physics? Really, maybe my e.d. was caused by the SPACE AROUND ME pushing in on me. riiight. Oh wait, that is anxiety.

crackers for breakfast• crackers for lunch• crackers for dinner.

no protein. I neeeeeeeed protein. I need it, I get cranky and depressed and exhausted w/out it but my god it is hard to eat it. ...but sometimes i can do it. (chew chew chew swallow don't think, don't dont't don't THINK..chew.)

But..I'm cat-sitting for this really cool lady, right. Well, I have to feed her cats canned food...and it makes me NOT want to eat...for the rest of the day. Really my brain just makes all these icky connections and the best i can do as far as eating is only eat really bland things. Okay, then, brain...we will EAT crackers. great. CARBS. really? ugh.

I don't know why it is soooo complicated....i just get so disgusted by the nature of food - what it really IS.

 I don't know why

and part of me doesn't care! i will stay strong -  even i have to drink meals. 

This is all very NEW. This never happened in the earlier more severe parts of my bizare food neurosis. There was no repulsive connections between food and meat or death or gross things.

There was just RESTRICTION.

So maybe parts of my mind are fighting against me being well.....??

I tend to do that. Fight against myself. Don't we all...?? in some way or another.

Anyway..the damn cats. I LIKE the cats. I have a dog. I'm a dog type-o-person. and i like fish. but i dream that i have to eat fish. and that sucks. bc the fish whisper to me.and they ask me not to eat them!!!!

OrANGE IS NOT for ADD Addled brains

I have some dumb fantasy that if i get some ADD medication that i will be able to salvage my life. I'm sure that is not true...for instance, I thought the same thing of cymbalta and that was a WRECK and night sweats and prozac is doing just dandy right?
So why am i all jumbled up and why do i feel like the transmission in my brain is BROKE like i cant shift gears and all my thoughts get jumbled and then I schedule five appts for the SAME time and try to leave the house w/out shoes on the coldest day of the year but i was IN a hurry....

and i supposed i will continue to be misunderstood and way too sensitve but really im beginning to think that everyone ELSE is just as senstive as me. i insulted 8 people in one blog - a blog that was totally self absorbed and all about ME.
or maybe it was the babykilling joke. yeah i'm sure that was totes lame. Sometimes i joke about things bc they are too horrid to deal with otherwise. Like when i told my dog that i would hate to drag around a mushed puppy patty so she better stay back off of the road. And then i laughed about plastered puppy patty all day bc I LOVE MY DAMN DOG. okay god, back to work. im totallly LOVING ORANGE TODAY

oh the humanity

So i posted the previous blog to my mypsace and then i was immediately like i wonder if that was offensive i should totally AMEND that so as not to offend anyone with children or religious beliefs, etc, and as soon as i did an old friend posted that she LIKED my post bc it was honest and she liked me bc i was TRUE and i replied that i thought the same thing of her..but then when i got back to this blog i had lost a follower and i was like ohmgod what'd i do? and that is one of the many weird things about being on the internets and blogging and total strangers and being a person like me who has waaay to many opinions to be so sensitive about offending anyone.
but the thing about ME is that i grew up in a TINY RURAL TOWN IN THE DEEP SOUTH and religion and family structure and tradions were EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE almost to the point of being ridiculous. and i can imagine that that is, in fact, a unique point of view if you are not used to it. The simple act of being vegetarian was - no IS STILL - like...groundbreaking...in this area so when i seem aggravated or angry and like a bit of a godless liberal (well...wait) it is bc many of the religions around here do not believe in watching TV or dancing!! or even birth control!! and they want the government to enforce these beleifs!! And i grew up not fitting in. and there was only like two options you could choose or you were "WEIRD". and yeah it was aggravating. This is not really the place for celebrating differences. which is why, yeah i should probably leave. but of course I totally believe that everyone should be whatever religion they want to be as long as it isn't forced on anyone else. and then again i dont know that i really have followers at all bc some of htem seem like spam. crazyness but ive gotten SPAM comments on my blog. really. okay i went out to run errands and forgot my wallet and so i came back and went out again and i bought two canvases so now im going to paint. for real. god i love humanity.

what was i thinking by writing this

Woke up feeling so weird and hazy today. I had the oddest thoughts and felt an overwhelming desire to delete my self from the internets. Reconnecting on facebook with the person who was mean to me in 3rd grade is not my idea of celebrating life. I mean im sure that everyone ELSE is happy and reproducing and being responsible capitalists and thinks life, is like, so fun and heaven is next up, BUT i am still very happy being ME and ME is not someone who ever fit in or felt connected or even remotely happy in a tiny rural town of people who enjoy church and sports and gossip about people's drinking and sexual habits.
The thing i wonder is, Am i A Snob? Bc i never tried to change myslef to fit in. I just rolled my eyes, basically bc if you dont GET why Live Through This is the Greatest Album of the 90s or why Beauty Pagents are DUMBASFUCK or why Welcome To the Dollhouse makes SENSE or why Emily DIckenson is so much more than a RECLUSE or why everyone SHOULD read Baudelaire and not ANIMAL TORTURE WEEKLY then i am not going to lower myself by explaining it to you. Okay so add in PLEASE FUCKING LIKE ME REALLY IM COOL and a touch of SUICIDE IS QUITE A LOT LIKE BEING THE QUEEN OF EVERYTHING and ALIENATION and then you have...... total bewilderment, really.

Really i have not thought of the torture that was high school that ended in my hospital stay and then i got fat and graduated and went to college and did drugs and hung out with loser boys and took art classes for years and i have to stop this list before i get to the present and really depress myself...

but lately i am thinking of it and i guess is bc of stupid facebook all these people who find me and im thinking you hated me! what? - now you want to be Socially Polite bc we are adult? fuck adult - i'm apparently an overgrown punk and i will still throw a brick in your window and haul ass. bc yes, that is how professional i am in my button up shirt and slacks and heels.
lol.

What am i supposed to say to these people? Congrats on your rampant reproduction, material consumption, and walk with christ, sorry you still don't get Feminism? or Equal Rights? or ANYTHING except christianity? remember that time you were REAL happy i almost ruined my life?

So instead of the BIZArre human condition of wanting people that you despise to LIKE you back (wtf) i wonder if i was always that WEIRD GIRL bc i wanted to alienate people and be totally weird or IF I WAS REALLY MENTALLY ILL. bc anxiety and depression and crippling intrusive thoughts can really really put a damper on the confident soccer playing, cheer leading, fbla joingin well adjusted youth prototype.
try huddling in a corner with dead spiders pulling the skin off of the bottoms of your feet, picturing everyone shriveled in a coffin. WELL. ITS TRUE. and it wasn't my fucking FAULT that starvation MADE SENSE like nothing else EVER DID.

so yeah maybe i am a loser, maybe im thirty and still sad about the fat kids that got laughed at and the ugly kids that got pushed down and the smart kids that got beat up. you know what?? IM GLAD I am EMPATHETIC. and im GLAD that i can see more than JUST MY SIDE OF THE STORY. and im glad that i HATE VANITY AND SELF OBSESSED soccer moms who want to push their kids to be prom queen model christian bc real life can be quite ugly and brutal and although i dont believe in wallowing in misery i do believe in learning and accepting THE TRUTH and not white-washing it.
so maybe i hold onto to pain more than i should.
i gaze at joy, too.
im just not going to pretend that everyone was rich and happy, when at the end..someone should tell the story of the forgotten few..or at least REMEMBER them.

i am not afraid...of much of anything anymore.

Heh. and i am THRILLED that Obama overturned the Global Gag Rule.
Le the babykilling commence.
(which is total sarcasm - its more like - let women receive accurate information about reproductive responsibility - finally - worldwide. Bc deciding NOT to have child is not easy in countries where rape is not penalized, Women dont have the right to say no or anything, and there is not enough food or resources to raise a healthy child anyway. so if you have resources to healthily reproduce or to decide not have child you should be thankful and not attempt to prevent women in other nations from making the excrutiating decision to not have a child.

>So my tragus piercing is NOT HEALING well at all and for a while i was doing sea salt soaks and using emu oil and then that just seemed to irritate it so i stopped and now i just wash it with anti bac soap once a day but you know what... I think ill just let it Rot off. cuz im punk rock like that! YAR..like the time i went to church with pus oozing from my nose ring. yeah.
So i make it all symbolic, though, in my head i imagine being looped ...hooked thru the ring in my ear to a wall. a stone wall.While it is HEALING you are connected to the initial pain but then..you know after it heals...you are free with a metal memory

it is silly maybe to apply meaning to things like i do, automatic brain response...to a chaotic world..i dont know sometimes it gets to be too much i guess and i apply meaning and EMPHASIS to things with NO meaning and then i begin to feel like a sad witch trapped in an imaginary world..scared to move bc i might make voodoo..what does it mean what does it mean.the stars what do they mean.they mean nothing nothing....constructed matchstick fantasy world ....chemical kisses.

Flew Five States (with a wounded wing)

I gave my sister a painting of a bird for xmas.

She took it back 5 states away and hung it up in her house.

merry xmas my tall lovely sister

I had my tests for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome today... Totally unaware that these tests involved NEEDLES. and of course before it was over i was white as a sheet and about to FAINT.

Now my arms have small purplish bruises from the jabs and i feel squeamish just remembering but..the final outcome is that yes i have some swollen nerve things on the ulna side and i wonder how much of this came from computer work and how much came from years and years of drawing daily small scritchy pictures one after the other for hours and hours..drawing furiously as if stopping would result in my total disappearance or fading away...drawing in order not to talk, not to deal with anything drawing in social situations drawing at parties drawing in class drawing at the bar drawing in church drawing at work in the margins in my car on napkins at the table.. i still make art but it is less of a compulsion now. i don't know if that is good or bad. It is sort of good that the overwhelming urgency has gone.. the pressure and fear but...i wonder how much i am missing out. I wonder about the pictures that ARENT being drawn. and if i owe it to prozac. and how much art balances with prozac. and how scary a thing that is to think...and how life is better illustrated, i think. and life is better with prozac. i think. here is prozac bird. Art with an anti d.

Prozac it makes you fly straighter! if you are an art bird, that is. with carpal tunnel syndrome in your wings.

Walk the Plank

I walk the plank

I walk the line

Why do I feel like I'm always playing a game that I can't win

I'm so bewildered I don't even know the rules!!!

so i made some up and they were, obviously, wrong.

Today was a day of reckoning for her. It was get up or go the hospital.

three...two... one...

she got up.

like I got up.

Jesus I wish I could tell her that yes, everyday I think it was worth it. 

I can weigh the reasons.

Another Tattered Torso

Healing humor healing imagery

healing oil, incense, church and bone.

However we heal...

however we recover

together or alone

soul serious singing

laughing earth in unision

we are.

Confessions of a

i think being kind is about the most important thing you can be

i lost drugs and god at the same time and i miss them both

Your particular mental disorder may be a painful crippling cage but what else have you got without it? oh wait. FREEDOM.

Its hard to imagine that evolution is not really progress, its just adaptation. We dont really get naturally better as if we are working toward a GOAL, we just get more efficient at surviving in a certain environment....You change or die out. I was such a nihilist. I'd have rather died out, but now i'm working on sticking it out for a while longer.

I'd say it has been very unfortunate for me that the martyr role is so appealing. And i never even got some fire or  crown?

I have swept out my skull as of late, but before, my brain was filled with ripped up fairy flesh and scattered bones. I got really angry and quit believing. They put up a good fight.

Sorry we are not cool enough for you guys - we did arts and crafts instead of watching MTV. We forgot to try to be beautiful and just decided to be ourselves.

i had a baby in my dream. it was a doll though. it would not act right so i got angry and threw it on the ground. 

When in the midst of a deep dark depression it may not seem as if everyone else's horrible tragic life is just as traumatic to them as yours is to you. But it is. You dont HAVE to wear a veil. But itd be cooler if you did.

i dress up to sleep in case the incubi or succubi come. they never do. i wake up in the same place..which is NOT an inbetween twilight fariy land where i finally feel at home...

i have alot of insect wings and turtle shells. but i promise i didnt RIP them off. i found them already broken.

Poisoning other people is a good way to make alot of money. Corporate hit men. Yikes!

i voted for Obama, but some people say it doesn't matter, there is evil on all fronts and we are doomed -  headed for Global enslavement. I tend the think that the fire is not in the hole just yet. The battle has yet to be laid out. The decisions he will make will set a course...Our future has not been quite set in stone..yet. Its in his heart...already, though.

Hearts have chambers that hold whimpering ghosts of who you used to be. I imagine myself delivering sacred healing oil to these spirits. I see that not all of them are me.

i want to run right now but its dark and not safe. i want to run through pine trees and have the moonlight flicker down..the smell of earth is so comforting to me. I used to fantasize about disintegrating into the dirt. When the Death Lust gripped me. Lately i have been clinging to the light.

heart to hold

This was a doodle i did a few months ago at my parents house, watching Tv with my sister. I was actually in pretty good spirits - strong spirits  - and was attempting to channel some of my energy into her. Energy to fight the Disease. That is mentally. But often the Need to "rescue" my sister will somehow cause me to become Suddenly Much Stronger Than I Thought Possible and it always has, since she was born and became my Living Doll and Best Friend and Sister Child. Since i was four years old i dressed her and fed fer and even helped potty train her and taught her to read. God, no wonder she's f'ing nuts. Heh. Not really, actually she does seem to be doing much better -  she just needs a much better shrink bc the one she has is overloading her with medication and I have to question his ..Ability to adequately treat her... or anyone actually w/out creating a dope fiend. I am using the few resources i have to find her a better doctor and i have a good lead.

I mean seriously. The guy just flat out asked her what medication she wanted. Xanax? Valium? Clonezepan? Trazadone? She sleeps. for. days. days. at a time. He is not helping.

So after i spent a week calling my mom daily to check on my sis and being convinced that she was suicidal my mom started over reacting about my over reacting. But my sister did improve and then when I finally made it home my mom immediately was like, "oh my god, your bones are jutting out, you have gotten too thin, you have lost weight just since xmas and i know it is bc you are too wrapped up in your sister."

Gah!! We are a cycle of neurotic energy. I had, I think, lost weight BEFORE xmas and was already gaining back by the time she noticed and freaked out. But i think she has trained herself to avoid my weight issues (I have my own therapist to deal with that ON MY OWN) that she really didn't notice until I was emotionally distraught. Which, in a way, could be a good thing -  I am communicating with words INSTEAD self harm. Yay. and all that. Anyway the weekend ended on a good note and no matter how  bizarre we may get there is lots of love. Which I am fortunate to have. So I left on Sunday night and headed to back to Natchitoches, back to work. back to job hunting and thinking and deciding without a forest to distract me. Without the Owls and banshees and all my grandmother's ghosts. I swear my sense of Self is so tangled up with those 80 acres....It is almost to much for my heart to hold.

trigger happy bitch

www.ivonnethein.com

so im not posting the pics this links too bc i honestly don't know how triggering they may be to people who get to my blog from the ED circle of blogs that i frequent.

They are so freakishly unreal they may not be a trigger or

they are so freakishly unreal the may be a HUMUNGOUS trigger.

so. BeWaRe

So this is 'ART' and i understand that and several really smart explanations and points were made on the jezebel discussion board

(only one thumbnail pic is on that link)

but all i can say...is that what i felt was..hate.

really.

I looked at the images, i read the discussion and i 

felt .... like i hated the whole world and everyone in it and me, too.

and i spent way toooo much time on the scale this morning before i even SAW this.

Silent Rain

I did this painting Sunday Morning. The day i left Tulsa...Wow that was just yesterday. It seems so long ago. It's crooked...the photo is. I used to know to straighten it in photoshop but I forgot. And its late and rainy and im cold. and tired. and alone. and kind of sad. and kind of peaceful all at the same time. God i LOVE SILENCE. and my house.