Warm

Love- Taming and Creating Beasts

I am the type of person that has doubts about almost everything.

I think doubt is the appropriate word.

Any joy I am given, I watch for consequences and intentions that might be connected.... to the point that I lose confidence in my own experiences.
There are exceptions
...Bigger Love escapes my mental traps. I don't doubt that Joe loves me or that I love him...... but I do see that there can be something terrifying about committed love.....I wouldn't have it any other way, but we are to each other, everything.
Love,  it is powerful, it over rides ... logic- morals, me. Its' pull is monstrous.
As a motivator I can't think of anything as effective..................
or, as a sedative.....
Taming beasts or creating them, love is massive.
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-Before I move on -
I feel the joy of love all the time, I will say that now, so it is clear.  What I want to focus on  is something else.... I am just setting that up clearly because I don't want a misunderstanding .... Joe is the one thing I am 100% about, I wouldn't want anyone to think anything else .... what I am about to write is not about him.... and for the next segment when I say love it is not romantic love ..... Just to be clear.
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There was a person I loved unconditionally. I never found the condition at least.

Unconditional love sounds like this wonderful thing, but I have to admit, it scares the hell out of me. It transforms me into a person I don't recognize and can't possibly trust.

He, was in my living room when he told me a story from his past... a horrible story...
As I was petting Boris, he told me about a time when he shot and killed a dog.

 The story was pathetic.... a guy he knew, a buddy.... had a dog, and the dog made a mess, got into some flour or something and so the guy no longer wanted the dog. So the person I loved, was paid money... He walked the dog out into the woods, and shot him in the head. The person I loved went on to talk about how nobel the dog was looking up at him with trust as the rifle's barrel rested on his head.....
disgusting.... it appalls me.....

But the part I want to highlight now is- the story, as sad and disturbing as it was...  did not affect my love for the person telling it.
 I didn't like the feeling of discovering what unconditional meant. I felt like every moral I ever thought I had was a joke. I don't have unconditional morality.... I have unstoppable emotion.

It feels terrible.

Who am I if I don't hate a man who shoots a fucking dog... but I don't.... and frankly I am beyond rationalizing and throwing layers of subterfuge on the event. I Believe that the person I love did something terrible, and I love them just as much as I did before the story.
What the hell does that make me.... that level of acceptance?

Terrifying.
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I joke about this, but Joe could murder a school bus full of children .... and I would bitch at him sure....but I would help him burry the bodies ......
I guess I feel lucky that he wouldn't .... I sure as hell have no control here.... I feel a bit prideful about being dedicated ... but I also feel like love should be equated with a zombie bite or an infection because it transforms you into .... wait ...... no ..... maybe it isn't transformation.... maybe it just exposes me for what I am.... a huge liar. Every decision I make... every thought I have, every cause I support has an override switch..... and the emotion that controls it is not subject to conscious thought.
Do people have control over love?
Was there a point of no return when I met Joe ... a point when I jumped off a cliff and couldn't go back to the person I was before?
With Joe I am just fine with going down together..... This sounds terribly self absorbed (I have a blog so of course I am self absorbed) but one of the things I liked most about Joe, even early in our friendship... is I really like myself when I am with him. ....but what if I didn't....
There is a saying I am going to steal from all the manga I read ... (I am also going to get it wrong because I don't quite know how to look it up) I will happily follow you to hell,  because that is where YOU are going.
I do like that level of dedication, I won't lie... I want to lose myself in love, to Joe....but there is this little quivering voice somewhere in my head that says" Whew.... you lucked out.... this turned out great, but don't pretend it was more than luck.... you and I both know you gave up the reins a while ago. This wasn't about you deciding,deserving or planning anything. "
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Since the first half of this was a huge bummer to read and write here are a couple of related stories that while similar are less grimy ..... less disturbing, hopefully...
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Stupid Dedication
I was making food for Joe one day. We had a package of meat in the fridge....... by date and smell it was fine but it looked kinda grey green to me.
 I decided to pass on it and eat something else, but,  Joe said it was fine, and he would eat it.
So, as I was frying it ..... and it still turned my stomach...... I started thinking...... what if this makes him sick that would be terrible.
 I started feeling guilty about avoiding sickness by using good sense and not eating green meat. The guilt got bigger ...............so.....
I ate a couple of forks full, because I didn't want him to suffer alone, I guess..... My actions were dedicated?.... but they were also weird and ridiculous..... Why was it better in my head for  both of us to get sick..... what sense was I making..... I even had rational thoughts like that in my head at the time but found myself eating the fucking meat anyway....
I feel proud and disdainful of myself at the same time.

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Morality .... out the window

I had a weird thing ...
a code maybe ..... I didn't want to kill anything if I didn't have to. I eat meat and walk on the grass so there was a level of hypocrisy to my commitment, but for years I would not kill bugs. If there was a spider in the house I took it outside, if a mosquito bit me I let it finish....
Then I got a dog..... and he stared chomping at the air whenever bees flew around his head. ( he eats ants too... we started calling him Renfeild. He often greets us all drooley and happy with a dead ant stuck to his tongue )
When Boris started biting bees I started killing them. Without hesitation .... any guilt I felt was in retrospect.


I wrote about this before and although I do it all the time.... I don't like to repeat myself so for reference here is the link.
http://chobeksbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-i-was-young-i-would-spend-hours.html

curiosity

Red

Boring Ramble

I have not written what I would call a normal entry in here for some time.

 It's raining today so I feel like maybe I should.

Joe will be working OT the next couple of days, he is grumpy about that... I don't blame him.... I would be too. 

I have to admit though, him going to work, and having OT and how it feels to do something like that... it has become kind of an abstract thing for me. I remember.... but it feels foggy now. You would think that after nearly 15 years I would be able to slip right back in to form with shop talk, but no.... when we drove by the factory the other day it felt like just a building. ...And Joe's experience with the plant is so different than mine, I think I was one of the only links he had to his co-workers. 

 I seem to not understand anything outside this house.... (I am really pulling away.) Everything else seems distant and complex. 

   Hearing Joe's version of what working is like ..... it feels degrading ... and painful. I want to lighten that burden .... but I feel like he recognizes the fact that I can't relate anymore......... No I think that is the filter I put on it, I think he just doesn't care and wants to leave it behind ...... but I think he can't. 

I want to be supportive but I feel guilty because I am no longer there and no longer getting a paycheck.... I feel guilty every time he seems concerned about money. Part of the guilt comes from not doing enough around the house .... part of it comes from feeling like I am in no position to complain about anything, I basically got my wish. I am at home and for the most part I feel great ................... but this week there is a distance and a sadness I can't shake. I feel like I am being pathetic. .................whatever, my writing is always a little too full of self pity. 

This blog started years ago after a flood in my parents basement destroyed a paper journal of mine.  I don't write it anticipating an audience, but somewhere I realize that it may be seen or read by others. SO ... I have unintentionally  developed levels of exposure. 

From the inside out. 

There is Joe. I tell Joe nearly everything 

-> then there is my paper Journal/sketchbook. In that I write the things no one should see, but I still want to express. 

-> then there is this blog.... I write less here now because I have shared the link on Deviant art and people know how to use search engines ... but I still take chances . I can live with anything I have said.... but I don't want to hurt anyone and some of the things I have talked about on here could be personal to the point of being uncomfortable. I have mixed feelings about that. I feel like my lack of openness with others when face to face gives them the wrong picture of me. I feel safe that way, but I think I want to expose my true nature and be accepted more than anything else. (I will come back to this point) So this blog is in limbo right now. 

-> I guess next would be Deviant Art .... I did not think of or anticipate a community on DA when I started posting work there... It was a dumping ground for images. I started it mainly so I could show people what I was working on without risking a link to this blog. However, the lines are blurring.... as I get more involved with DA I find myself exposing and disclosing things.

-> Sadly, the next rung is probably face to face communication with any other human being. I feel like I have cut so many ties and walled off so many parts of myself that no one is really in a position to know me now. My awkwardness is increasing.................. 

... to be continued

  

 

A Weird Little Sketchbook

These are from a strange little sketchbook I found .... weird bunch of ?things?....... my head seems to be all over the place.

The image w/ the glasses is a self portrait, my head is the shape of an eggplant. ...

New Scanner

Well I am still playing around..... these colors are goofy but these are the raw scans without alterations, and with the old one I couldn't have gotten a useable image with just the scan. These scans,though dull, seem to have a better range.... I said this in the last post, but, I find the dull colors appealing...........however what seems less forgivable is the blacks seem really grey.... blah blah blah........ I should just end by saying I am playing around from my seat on the couch.... the new scanner is Wifi enabled.... but my image manipulation software is in the other room, so I will fuck around with that later and pretend it is because I am experimenting not because I am lazy.

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haxan

Update..

I got a new scanner and this piece looks totally different..........so I am posting it for a sample ... I think my old scanner might be going. With the old scanner, I needed to adjust every image I scanned in photo shop to get it to come even close to the original, ....still...... there were some subtle points that I could never get to pick up without playing around with the dials

 .... there is more depth to the new scanner.... but the color is a bit muted. I like the muted color ... but on the original it does have a bit more pop and there is a little bit of a blur I think. (The blur could just be from the spiral edge of the sketchbook lifting up.) 

the drawing still sucks though. :) 

Not happy with the scan... Or the piece in general but there are a few moments of interest so I thought I might post it here. It started as a contest entry.... The theme was Witch(es).

Below is just the full version ... I don't like that one either... If I come back to this thing I will update....

I made the ATC below .... just to get rid of some frustrations .....

Drive

Doing Something

Since I quit my Job…. I have become myself again……………. or I am getting close. 

However,  I can be a little fucked up so there are all sorts of realities I am crashing in to. 

It is honestly wonderful being alone roaming around the house at night… I sit under a lamp listening to music and draw most of the time. In my head I day dream…. complex and odd fleshed out fantasies. On the paper I am flying…. I feel very fertile…….. I don’t know what I think of what I am producing… but creating has become something other than escape…. no maybe that’s wrong…. It is still escapism I guess……….. but I am not fleeing or venting as much as I use to. I am fine with Just that.

 I thought that maybe all I was capable of anymore was channeling frustration through my pen. I thought that my patterns were only linked to pain and tension, because they erupted from me when I felt like I was breaking. I expended a lot of energy resenting them. That isn’t gone completely … and I still have plenty of negativity  swimming around in my brain but that isn’t all there is anymore. I hope that a greater complexity will show itself. 

I still lack the drive to sell

I have not cleaned the house…. I made it worse…. 

Those were two major mental selling points in my head when I was deciding to quit….. 

I thought in a genuine way that I didn’t do those things because I didn’t have time …. that time was the only thing holding me back ……….. 

I was wrong. 

I am lazy….. I procrastinate …… and I talk myself out of things. 

all huge hurdles for me. 

I am not kidding when I say I do nothing with my artwork now. 

I am stock piling it …. almost everything I have done in the last few years is sitting in a tupperware bin in my hall. 

Getting the bin was a big step for me actually. 

When I am working on something it is with me constantly …. or I want it to be. When I was working on my patterned wood balls I would put them in my pocket when I went out to eat, just so they were close…….. and the second I was done with them I would loose them …. they would end up in my laundry or in the refrigerator (that only happened once) in the car …. or rolling around on the floor. 

………

so

………

selling

……

I think I hate it. 

I don’t want to talk to anyone …. I don’t want to convince anyone they should care about what I have made…. 

I don’t hate everything that I make, but, I want the transaction to be very honest. Here I made this—— do you want it more than you want that money you have …. because I want that money. 

There is a place locally that sells arts and crafts on consignment. I think I am going to give it a shot. For the last three days I have been working up to writing and e-mail. 

day 1 — me-> This is great… I can do it …. I am great …. everyone will love me, How will I manage to deal with all the fame and money!

day2  - hmmm how do I price this …. If I follow the guidelines for handmade items “that” would cost $500 …. ridiculous …. I can live with 50 …. shit they take 30% …. if I add that on it is still too high ….. How do I package  this….

day3-Fuck…. why did I think this would interest anyone… I am being too pushy….

Day 4 is coming….. I have seen this pattern before with my Etsy store ….the one I put 5 items up on …. they sit there unseen …. I see the number of views The most viewed item hit 11 views …. I think 2 views were from me. 

On day 4 I would normally decide that I am not ready and I should keep stock piling…. keep working out the kinks …. make a better product… 

NO- I will push this through Mother Fucker!

(I like ending on Mother Fucker)

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChobeksBazaar

mixed

Fear

Nomad

Question

this one turned into Question (above)