uh...do these bones make my hips look wide?  .....

Maladaptive Universe. congrats on yr starving!?!

Will power is continuing to paint when you know you suck

Continuing to write when you know you are not a writer

And continuing to eat when you think you are big enough

But you know there are people counting on you to keep going.

So yeah, I am working on this watercolor. Practice.

Non stop practice, it feels like.

So yeah, Im like, this is stupid. And pointless.

Buti keep going, I am still in that mode.

My moods, they don’t come and flash and go

They come and they settle and stay a while.

And I drink. And I smoke. And I paint.

Its bad, yeah. I know.

But the thing about addiction… is THIS. Don’t congratulate yourself

For your willpower when it comes to E.D.  – AN specifically.

Don't congratulate yourself for starving..when you LIKE it. when you are addicted to it.

Does anyone congratulate a drug addict for snorting all THOSE LINES???

or an alcoholic for drinking THAT MUCH??? no. NO. But it is the same thing.

resisting food is not -

NOT about having a strong personality..when it is something you are addicted to.

jesus. Does this society's love affair with thin NEVER end? really though.

I LIKED IT.

just like i like struggling to be a good painter..when

 i know...there are only a handful of good ones.

oh well.

its the struggle, right? the struggle for balance and for health.

"No Struggle.

No Progress "- (frederick douglass quote.)

hmm this painting is just a copy from a magazine. i do that sometimes for practice. but it kept looking more and more like me as a confused kid than as a fashion model in  NYLON. so i let it go and be that. ugly dress and all. then i made a butterfly with mis matched wings out of a different kind of paper and sewed that on. MALadaPTIve uNIVersE.

keep going.

That is all. Just keep going.

Girl I Used To Know

miss her sometimes.

Worth...Can you see where i 'm not? APD Avoidant Personality Disorder

Can you see where I am not? A few lines in the book "Wasted" reminded me of this picture I made.  Marya wrote of becoming obsessed with the gaps, the space around her. I identified completely with that.

In an old sketchbook of mine I found a page where I had, at about 16 years of age, written a number. My weight at the time. Over and over I wrote that number. And below it scrawled "oh i have worked so hard for every pound that I am NOT."


How did I end up working in the negative? I am operating in the empty space. The Dead Zone. Go Away.

So yeah, I finished the book and then went searching for books on Avoidant Personality Disorder. Ha. These two events, finishing the book and searching Amazon, are a cause and effect. The twisty thought pattern connecting this cause and effect is quite stupid. And simple. and Lame.

I loved the book, it was just as wonderful as all the gushing reviews said. Yes, this Book Could Save a Life. I became preoccupied with her MANIA, though.
I never read an ED book before. ever. I avoided them. I suppose in a selfish, yes-i -am -preoccupied -with -my- self- self -self- self -way, I wanted to read a book about ME.

A book that ended with a chapter on how to Save Your own Life. Yes, that is ridiculous, I know. God, i thought., Why are there NO books by Avoidants? Why are there not even but TWO self help books on Avoidants? (i ordered them both. used.)

oh. I laugh. I imagine there are countless books by and about avoidants stuffed under mattresses and behind couches and in closets with a matching terrified owner refusing to. Just REFUSING to.
Waiting for the Emily Dickinson story to play out.

(and it won't. ever)

or maybe not. Maybe no one cares. You "chose" to avoid (did NOT) and sitting your life out is not nearly as dramatic or interesting or much ANYTHING as a Prozac Nation type smart girl mania complete with screaming fights in public and blood and starvation and suicide attempts. Nothing for the APD but... Just the comfort of ISOLATION. Refusing.

bc really, you painted yourself into this corner. You blacked out the windows. You didn't even try. You refused to fill out the forms, take the tests, change locations, go to the meeting or talk to the person in charge. You refused to eat, or explain, or even show up. Or return a phone call. So there you go. And here you are.

The best book on APD was over 60 bucks so i could not get it but i'm going to try to get it through the libarary. This cinched it
"Avoidants are not simply afraid of criticism and humiliation -- the only reason for avoidance currently identified in the official literature. They are also afraid of being flooded by feelings they cannot tolerate, and of being depleted should they express these feelings. Most importantly, they fear acceptance as much as they fear rejection because they fear losing their identity and personal freedom. 

Yes, all the literature did say fear of criticism. I refused to identify with that. You can tell me I suck all day. I may agree with you, but i most likely also think you are no better than me. You people have pegged me wrong and i wont hear it. i refuse to admit this may be my problem.

Strange Aches. Unfinished Business

Marya is manic.  Im almost done with Wasted, so I look her up to see what else she has written. Her book Madness, which came out in April 2008, is about being diagnosed as Bipolar.  Everything makes much more sense, now. I was expecting a book about a girl with e.d.'s but as I was reading I actually thought, " can't believe no one diagnosed her as manic-depressive" (that is the old term for it, right?. Oh, but they did. Only it was a story for another day.
Her behavior in Wasted is terrifying to me. Mania is terrifying and fascinating to me bc I have most likely never felt a single drop of it....but it always seemed like a necessary something to counterbalance the EXTREME depth of my depression. After I emerged from the worst deep  and dark depression of my life, I told my T that my brain felt wounded...that i was actually waiting for an extreme upswing..something to knock the pendulum too far over into a realm of the OPPOSITE of depression..whatever that is. Mania, I guess. Instead I documented the time between waking up and having the first 'longing for death' thought. Gradually that time increased. Slowy, slowly crawling back to life. Once I had "but i don't want to die," run across my mind, and was so shocked and excited that I immediately told my T. My brain had only offered me misery and rather gruesome thoughts for so long...the first positive idea that floated up was stunning. An Organ offering thoughts was the only way i could describe My Own Thinking...I didn't feel like I owned my thoughts...My brain was just a sick organ rotting in my skull. Radiating outward the putrid god awful thoughts...
And nothing got accomplished. I avoided everything and everyone. I finished school, I painted ferociously, but i kept it mostly to myself and had shaking anxiety fits when I thought about a Plan for The Rest Of My Life. or Promoting Me. So I did nothing. And I become nothing.
So reading about People who had
a debilitating mental illness
and survived and
even achieved.
gives me strange aches.

Truth

drinking wine.
not drinking wings, although that would be nice.

can't type. never could.
hope will float up, i think it does.

31 years and i figured one thing out
you have to believe in yourself ... u really do.

bc no one else can. What they believe in
is their perception of you...
and it is very likely..well... Wrong.

What goes around comes around, and yeah
i did some dumb things.

ususally bc i was afraid
of the truth.
Can't tell the truth..dont know what it is.
Isn't the truth just whatever you want to hear?

no? oh.

well i have magic mirrors sewn into my skin
and what i am
is whatever you want me to be.
but that spell wont last very long.
and when it wears off..
you say, "i never want to see you again"
and the bad thing...
the bad thing is
i understand.

WASTED

I am reading Wasted…by Marya Hornbacher.(finally) I have sort of avoided it. E.D. related books give me alls ort of weird and conflicted emotions but I was ran across it in the library and couldn’t leave without it.  I was in the library bc I have been reading about the Celts and I picked a few more celt books (one history, one fairy tales) and a movie about archaeology digs of Celtic burials. I love all that..anthropology, material culure…of Others. Not Mine.

My culture is Wasted… And the ADD book self help book I picked up.

{LOSER.} shut up I amtryingtoimprovemyself

So anyway, Wasted, is on one level, something I can related to, and on another level, absolutely maniac terrifying.  The counting, the repetition, and the disassociation, the body image issues I can TOTALLY relate to. The fearless wild child ….I am shocked by and in awe of. It rings true though. All of the bulimics I have known, have been  much more fearless and outgoing…aggressive Risk Takers than the AN.  Surely, that is not true in all cases, but just the few I have know. 

The An part of me is absolutely terrified. Of. Everything. Any Change is upsetting and makes me quite aware that we are all going to die. It took an act of God to move across town… All the strength I had. It was like closing my eyes running off the edge of something. In reality it was. NO. BIG. DEAL.  So I find her experiences of fighting, drugs and sex and trouble to be absolutely mystifying.

I enjoy her writing style, how it flows almost poetry-like and has the rhythm  of a voice.

Gazing at her face on the cover, at her body..i wonder what it be like to talk to her…..to have known her in 1984, 1995, now.

What kind of brain does it take to make long series of cohesive complete sentences (NO FRAGMENTS) and express present tense thoughts about painful past tense.events?

A good one, it seems like.

The book is not a trigger so far, although I secretly hoped it would be. There I go, setting traps inside myself. Another Protective Chain Link, a Wall, a Silent little Cage. So besides just enjoying the artistic merit of her words, Maybe I'll learn something from this book. Somethin’ about getting free from this wasted cage.

Stars shine inside

So sometimes I start a post and then it just meanders off into various bits of poems and scraps of descriptions and then i read it later an think. Oh! Well that doesn't make much sense.

at all. Nice.

So i LOST my medicine. I had it all neat and tucked away in a little travel bag in my huge giant purse full of random necessities and ...at some point I noticed it was gone and i could not really remember the last time i even had it. So after 3 days of searching I began to feel strange. Not Effexor strange which was THE WORST ever. (effexor withdrawal felt like having your brain wrapped in tin foil and then microwaved) This fluoxetine withdrawal was not that bad but it was painful and so ...confusing everything got much more confusing. and then on my way to the pharmacy to get some more (i finally gave up looking) i lost the prescription ...so i search and finally find it in the recycle bin. and then you know, it goes on like that. Things are just lost and I screwed up all this stuff at work and my brain felt off kilter.
is this how it is gonna be? forever? ugh meds are scary.
This picture is about once..for a while i was obsessed with this pond and made up stories about the creatures that might live there and i made up a story about a woman who had a fish baby  - like a little mer baby and she had to keep it in the pond. It was magical-sad....like a curse and a blessing. I think i drew the baby I will have to find it. anyway. god my head hurts.
My right brain. it loves me much more than the left.

MEDICINE
So the doctor i see, she gave me tons of klonipin and stuff -  along time ago. and trazadone. and it just sedated me to no end. Really, i slept through like 3 years of college. I can't focus. Sedatives make me even MORE confused and unable to focus and i'm still anxious!! i'm just unconscious,too. So finally I tell her, you know, I don't want this. I'm not taking it..anymore.  And most of the antiDs I took didn't work, either She never wanted to give me flouxetine bc she was afraid i would lose weight. And even though i read about it and thought it sounded promising, I was afraid to ask about it bc I was afraid she would think I WANTED it. for the possible weight loss side effect. Well, finally there was nothing else to try, so she gives me flouxetine and  - IT WORKS. better than any antiD ever worked. Really. IT CHANGED MY LIFE. (and I didn't lose weight bc I eat on a plan pretty much. Appetite does not mean much, you know.) So is discussing meds the most awkward and weird thing for everyone? bc i really really hate it. Okay I am off to feed the right brain...and then to sleep.

altered altar

I have been working on this for like five years. Okaaay more like 5 months...I work on it and then toss it aside and then come back to it. I have sculptures of most of my paintings. That headless body. In a box in a Coffin, free standing or slumped. Broken pieces of them litter my house. a torso in a flower pot -  she is not Growing by the aloe vera  - just BEING there. She is.

My first sculpture class. I made a figure. Headless armless, jagged bone shoulders and hips with a fleshy belly and thighs. She was miniature, I was getting read to make a few life size ones. 

I grew. Abnormally. Attached. I carried her everywhere. In my purse. In my backpack. Placed her on the car seat beside me. She got chipped. I drew her in various locations, in various light.

I was AN "recovered" at this point. Or rather, i had traded one illness for a few other minor addictions....but physically i was all healed and i was emotionally healing

some trauma

with 

some art.

Every figure i drew, every figure i sculpted...

took me a little farther from that fucked up body

and all those fucked up things that happened.

Sympathetic magic, my love.

i guess.

so see that is why i am real pissed off about

and refuse to forget about

that girl that copied my paintings.

bc she doesn't know what they MEAN.

she just stole the images.

Which, of course, is morally reprehensible

(and unprofessional) for an ARTIST

and on the level of basic humanity and decency is beyond morally reprehensible but..?

People told me that imitation is flattery but i disagree.

inspiration is flattery. I was inspired by several of the women i went to school with.

The person that breaks into your house and steals your TV is not complimenting you

for having great taste in electronics. They are disrespecting all of your rights and taking your stuff bc they want to.....

and that is totes lame.

but whatever right. Art therapy is what I am thinking about here. I am also thinking about  my refusal to compromise. bc in some situations I know I would have more friends and more...money even and all that shit if i would let go of some pretty hardcore beliefs i have about loyalty and friendship and honor and truth and ....

but i wont.

So should i? Alter my altar? Change to whom I devote the deepest part of me?

Well if I am a witch, I'm a good witch. Devoted to the green growing things and moonlight.

Bloodshed with good intentions.

That bone goddess and the Hunger pit

are not for worshipping. They were for overcoming.

Just Walkin the Dog

Proof that getting sharp pointy stickers out of Ellie's back feet hurt me much more than her.

Seriously, she has yelped before but this time I got stuck (and made that face while my friend snapped the camera) and my dog is just chillin, like, "yeah my momma is my personal assistant"

So yesterday we went for a big long walk on the river. It is the first real walk she has had since she got sick. I had been keeping her pretty still bc her spleen was swollen. But she is doing well and we get final bloodwork tomorrow to see if we are cured! and then hopefully she can get off the steriods bc they maker her sooooo HUNGRY. And THIRSTY.

Yesterday, she finished her supper and whimpered...then she just sat at her empty bowl and howled bc it was all gone!!!

so here we are.

So i have a bad habit of painting the mat. It is supposed to just be white or black, you know but i don't like for the art to be all squared off in this sterile white border. And that is against all convention - apparently?...?/.... anyway this painting is tiny. Like two inches wide. And it was photographed under glass so it is not a clear or crisp image. But she is troubled. and i am too. so here were are.

She ate that bitter heart

So a few blogs ago i posted Bitter Heart a Love RAnt and the deleted the post bc it was all guncky breakup disappointment in love bitter ..bleh. You know. So i left the image of the girl eating the heart. Well, since then she has EATEN that heart. And swallowed it. She feels better. or maybe worse. Here, ask her:

So she is in progress, but i am working on her still. It is very hard for me to focus on ONE thing for long so usually i have like 8 projects started and just go scatterbrained all over them and maybe finish two. But I am employing behavior modification to work on that. Heh yeah..let you know THAt goes.

Well here is miss bitter heart in her full picture plane:

I have got more work to do on the arms, the sky and that weird window pane border i ended up with. But I... i don't know the Starve may get removed or pushed back. initially i wrote "But would you starve for it?" Then i circled the starve and the rest faded away. I am alluding to the self destructive measures we will go to in order to get what we want..what we THINK we want. Sort of "The Lost Search For Nothing"...for Something REAL but you are looking in the Wrong place following the Wrong sign. Rewarding yourself for being such a martyr...but for no one. for nothing. for a hollow stare and a hungry hungry mouth.

Literally starving - as in a physical sense, or even emotionally starving....such as not taking care of yourself, or eating pills instead of a nurturing substance. whatever. I am referring to the loss. Chasing a love that is not there? What if you loved yourself. hmmm zombie • face • heart • eater • stare...cold and a million million miles away. Thought he understood but he didn't... anyway blah blah i have redbug bites on my ankles that are driving me NUTS and my dog is going to the vet today to get more tests and hopefully the results will be GREAT! fingers crossed!

oh and you can click on my images to see them larger..btw in case you didn't know.

ugh....yikes.

havent blogged much bc....most of what i want to write it is bitter break up blech. plus my dog is not doing well and that just has me way way way dowwwwn.

i love my animals.

i have been making art. but i saw my T on Saturday and she asked me if ...

since i made themost and best art w hen i was super depressed and freeaked out...she asked if i ever made drama...

so that i would have a reason to make art.

and i must admit.

i am THINKIN'.

ABOUT IT.

This really sucks.

My dog is sick. She may have cancer. She may get better...she may die. This sucks so bad. I have totally over protected and over-reacted about everything in her doggie life....

I got her for my 29th bday. It was  a NEW START. Just us. She is only two.

Im seriously sick about it...and other things ...sort of smothering right now. I want to go far, far, far away way out in the middle of a field and sit there and talk to this guy for hours and hours. Figure it all out.

So sick of romantic love. Such a stupid distraction and pretty pretty meaningless words. I know i want to be with you forever or at least until you screw up yr meds and have a meltdown. Well thank God i didn't believe any of the rosey love poems bc if i had, I would be totally crushed right now.

But  my Gut said don't let go of your life, bc this is just a  boy trick. very very immature fantasyland la la story. and it was. and i know. and now it is onwards and upwards. or maybe downwards....but where-ever i go, i will go alone, and i will be thankful.

my life according to Bright Eyes

This was going around facebook and i kinda liked howmine came out. I was a bit cynic

al in my choices..but that is how i felt that day. this day. hopefully not forever

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. Repost as "my life according to (band name)"

Pick your Artist:
BRIGHT EYES

Are you a male or female:
Waste Of Paint

Describe yourself:
When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass

How do you feel:
Gold Mine Gutted

Describe where you currently live:

Down In A Rabbit Hole

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Racing Towards The New

Describe the opposite sex:
A Poetic Retelling Of An Unfortunate Seduction

Your favorite form of transportation:
Ship In A Bottle

Your best friends are:
No Lies, Just Love

What's the weather like:
The Awful Sweetness Of Escaping Sweat

Favorite time of day:
A Few Minutes On Friday

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
A Scale, A Mirror And Those Indifferent Clocks

What is life to you:
An Attempt To Tip The Scales

Your last relationship:
Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)

Your fear:
Untitled (Lovers Turn Into Monsters)

What is the best advice you have to give:
Take It Easy (Love Nothing)

Thought for the Day:
I Must Belong Somewhere+

How I would like to die:
Going For The Gold

My soul's present condition:
I've Been Eating (For You)

My motto:
Hit The Switch

Your Turn!!

oh and here is a pic of some goats. bc i like goats!!

Doll face No Face

who are you and what do you want to do with your life?

Dollface and Her Coffin

I have drawn several (hundred lol) pics of women in coffins, in front of coffins, walking away from coffins....

I sculpted an 5.5 foot coffin and placed a styrofoam sculpture of a distorted pregnant female figure.

Coffins are symbols but not always of death. Maybe just fear, just a trap, a womb or cage you are afraid to be out of. 

When i think back to the images in first art show to the ones i am making now it is such a progression (in skill i hope but also in visual imagery) Guess I am telling a story, here. Guess I am Illustrating my life. I hope  - I dream - that maybe one day i will be able to HELP someone, somehow with my images and experience.

The E.D. was one thing, the Depression and Anxiety was one thing...S.I. was one thing...One thing I don't ever want to hide or lie about but one thing I FOUGHT LIKE HELL TO OVERCOME

for years. And i drew that fight. Of course I don't want to glamourize the struggle, the starving or the blood even though at times, doesn't it glamourize itself? It does to me but I know that is part of the trick. Part of the comfort of being sick.

Anyway i am hovering but im hovering high right now! I have another new painting to post i just need some natural sunlight to photograph it and it has been toooo rainy here.

My Tulsa trip (to see the boy and to see Sonic Youth) was fanta-bulous and here is a pic of me downtown being verrrrry happy!!!

So.

why would a person get out of a coffin yet insist on

carrying with them everywhere?

Folk Urban Continuum. I am it.

Awesome weekend at my parents house. I fed a baby calf and this mama hog. I really love hogs. Its crazy, bc i am vegetarian but my dad and his brothers and his parents and his grandparents and on and on were all hog hunters. They have free range hogs that live in the swamp, they hunt, catch, and kill them in the winter. I grew up watching all sort of animals killed and cleaned. Maybe that i why i am veg.... bc i do believe animals can suffer, and I think it is rather gruesome to eat them, but i deal with and accept the fact that my family and most everyone I know, eat meat. However, I think it is more humane to kill and eat wild animals that it is to raise them in tiny cages and mass produce them. Anyway, I used to think about this ALL THE TIME. I am so spiritual with nature and animals that is almost goes over into the realm of new age hokey-iness.
Yes, i can laugh at myself.
No, I will not eat a shrimp.
Yes, i want to bury steaks and give them funerals
No, Im not disgusted by watching a hog being butchered.
Yes, i love bones. I collect bones. I see life as a circle....my bone collection and my vegetarianism are not a contradiction. They are a confirmation. Almost a religion.

Humans can be nasty. and vile.

Life can be ugly. and gruesome.

There were times, when i should have looked away.

and i didnt.

And humans can be Kind and Joyful

and Love and compassion can abound

and i honestly don't know what to make of all of it.

So i draw

and i write

and i blog

and i breathe

MONSTER

Here is the Monster drawing i did for the Monster Mash Show in Shreveport

The theme was just your interpretation of a monster. So i did this sort of primal, instinctive natural monster that is inside everyone. LIke Maybe even more primitive than an animal, you know, its a freaking plant. trying to surive. Trying to grow towards the sunshine.

It is funny than heard "your own interpretation of amonster" and the first thing i thought was INSIDE ME.

so...this is the see inside monster.

and i was in Tulsa during the show, so UNFORTUNATELY I didn't get to attend the opening, and i don't have my own pics.
Prints are for sale for 10 bucks.

aaand since i hate to blog w/out a pic here is a shot of me and my bestest friend Amanda at the Terrorplex near Dallas. It was a series of Haunted Houses and it was a blast!