No bath

Someone does NOT want a bath. 

I don't get it. She is a large, large dog with a menacing bark and yet she is scared to death about being clean. You guys, she seriously needs a bath. She smells like old man cellar and outside. Of course, I just HAD to adopt a white model canine so she's dirtier than the average bear. She also sheds like a fiend. Short hair = hair everywhere. 

She's an American Bulldog and she is the smartest and sweetest dog ever. She's also really protective. I'm not sure what happened to her in the short 4 months she had without me, but she does not like men she does not know. Girls? No problem. Boys? You are going to get growled at and averted at all costs. 

Honestly, I haven't loved a dog this much  since my pug, Shelby, aka Noonie aka Shel Bo Baggins passed away. 

She's pretty rad. Even though she stinks. 

Look at that face. 

When she gets warm, her skin turns pink. 

Ps. I didn't spell check this as I'm going against my rule and posting from my iPhone and while imbibing on spirits. If it's one thing I've learned, stay away from the internet when you've been drinking. 

Muahahaha I'll probably post again tonight. 

collllddddd and scarrryyyyy

This is what I looked like this morning while I pumped gas into my car.



Soooooooo, this just happened:

the meterological gods have changed their minds and gave me more snow! I think my post yesterday did the trick.
 
My philosophy is, if it has to be cold outside, there had better be snow. I think I'm low on the pole when it comes to getting excited over storms approaching. My uncle once told me "You're not a true 'Fedden' at heart if you hate snow."  Fedden, by the way, is my grandfather's surname. It doesn't look too German, but it is. His family is from Friedrichshafen, Germany, right on Lake Constance. Needless to say, that city is on my list of places to visit.  But that's a whole different story.

I was talking about snow again.

Oh well, at least I have something to post for tomorrow.  I have a great winter photograph of my grandparents that I'll share instead of rabbit drawings. 





Almost forgot.

Happy Friday the 13th!  Muahahahahaha

winter

The static electricity that ensues due to increased indoor heat because it's stupid cold outside drives me a bit insane. My hair, my clothes, my cats, even my socks have static.

You just can't shake it.

I can't seem to stop drawing this rabbit.

It's not officially winter until Dec 21st but it's definitely reared it's frozen head where I live. I love snow. I have 4 wheel drive and I don't mind driving in it. I hate other drivers. They ruin winter for me. Coming to a dead stop on an incline up a mountain is not how you drive in the snow and yet this is what happens EVERY. SINGLE. WINTER. SEASON. One would think that having lived in said mountains for a period of time, one would adjust.  No.  no.  NO. 
But I'm excited nonetheless. Being an eternal child has it's benefits. One is getting ready to bolt outside and bury your dog in the snow. Another is trying to get her to pull your sled, which she won't do, and will leave you face down in the snow for having attempted it. Cheeky girl. Then I walk to my parents house and I throw snowballs at their windows until they acknowledge that I'm outside in the snow. That's about the time I build the snow ramp in their yard since they have a great slope for sledding. Woohoo!
SO. EXCITED.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm not in the 6-12 inch band of snow. For some reason, old man winter has been dumping snow everywhere around me and ignoring me like a little kid.  What gives, you jerk?

sugar+RANDOM POST

I had more sugar than I'm used to today. 

So much that I realized that I was meowing at my desk. I was thinking about my cat, sitting in my dining room window.  He sits on his tail. He's very bushy. His name is Belushi but I call him BOOSH because he's really hairy and poofy.

The sugar is leaving me and I'm thinking about dinner.

I love Italian food. All of it.  I try not to eat too much pasta and cheese. It's going to be hard to not eat a ton of this tonight.




The coffee is still raging on in my system though. I love coffee.  Coffee and sugar do things to me. They make me outgoing and focused. In the right amount, together they make me a tornadic whirlwind of silly loudness. It's almost to tourette's levels.  I feel like Edgar right before he burst out of his Edgar suit.

Oh god.

the pause before i have to board the ride again

Today is just do it without thinking day. After being flashed by the bright light located at the apex of a stress a-bomb, a short reprieve occurs.

I level up

Then back

and ultimately realize that I'm a nude rabbit who loathes raw carrots and just wants some hummus.

Today is just

And......

I swear my teeth have hair. 

Something new. So new that I can't access my computer to scan and color. 

More soon. 

Unless I become consumed with killing things and leveling up in Borderlands 2 again. 

Too Dark Park

This is 5:04 pm, in my back yard, located 

in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. I think I need to hibernate. 

More hours in a day, please

I've been working too much it seems and I've neglected my blog. For shame. 

To make up for it with the little time I can eke out right now, I give you this short video of how bold my dog is. Oh so bold! I was in the process of making cookies and texting a friend. I guess she thought I wasn't paying attention. 

http://youtu.be/0RW56ju1sEk

Bold! 

Little things

     I decided to scour my closet at the early hour of 5am for a pair of clean jeans to throw on for work today, which turned out to be a good thing despite almost face planting the floor due to being half asleep.  My closet is currently the graveyard where I've buried the pants that don't fit me at the moment.  After going through a stressful situation last year, I lost all hold on the reigns of my healthy diet and went in the absurd direction of carbohydrates. I just can't shake my Lithuanian/Russian genes from my great grandmother and my German genes from my great grandfather that control things I crave such as pierogis, potatoes, stews, breads, pancakes, and most of all, beer and sugar beet wine. It's all inherently the things I feel I should eat and drink. Do that for 8  months and you get a little sausage body when all you have in height is 5'2".  I do adore my height, by the way, but it does me no favors when it comes to my weight. It's a precarious balance.
     Regardless, I decided to either ruin or make my day by trying on a pair of said ghost jeans. After all, I've been back to normal eating over the last 2 months, being healthier again and only carbing up once in a while. Alas, the jeans fit.  Not only did they fit, they were comfortable.  Oh thank the gods. My impending 8 1/2 hours at work won't suck today. 

     Along with my jeans now fitting properly, my extreme pixie hairstyle is growing out. This was my first time experiencing a pixie cut and I went all out, having the stylist buzz cut all the way around the back of my head as well.  I've always had long hair and my prior shorter cut was grown out to my shoulders in a mere year.  I figured if I were still in the short range, if I wanted to try this pixie thing, now was the time.  It's been a love/hate relationship, to be honest. I feel bare and exposed, needing a scarf to cover my neck at times.  I also feel like a little kid, which I am mostly on the inside, and that little girl loves it.  Now comes the time for styling outgrowth. I'm going to let it go wild again, gypsy wild, with its natural waves doing their best to make me feel pretty. It's already curling up where I've had to whip out the hair straightener. 

     Scouring the internet for styles, I've found some nice vintage/retro styles that I think are quite nice. I've always felt like I didn't belong in the times I've been born into but rather the 20's through the 40's.  There are tons, if not too many, sites devoted to this style.  It's a bit overwhelming. I could waste days going through it all.

I've narrowed it down to a few.


There's the vintage wave courtesy of Hairfinder.com

 















Also, the rolled-back look aka victory rolls, that I used to wear when my hair was longer. Courtesy of TotalBeauty.com

Lastly, the inevitable bob that will emerge.  I don't want to use a celebrity reference but Katy Perry has the same shape to her face and hair color as I do so it works. Courtesy of TheHairstyler.com

Herein ends my chatter for today.

Pumpkin lovelies

     I love Halloween. What I love almost as much is that when people think about Halloween or needing an artistic hand in Halloween land, their thoughts zip line straight to me.  Enter my day job. People know what I'm all about so it didn't surprise me in the least when a vote was had and I was chosen the representative pumpkin carver/decorator for our branch of employees in a pumpkin carving contest. After all the shutdown madness involving government workers, this is an attempt to remove some stress. It may not work for many but it works for me. 

Alas, I give you Helga and her two ungrateful children, Boris and Benny. 

No answers, only questions, and it's ok

     Stepping over the pieces of glass strew across the floor, I encounter Sir Filament. He is blackened and blown out, thin antennae dangling at his sides. In an instant I can imagine his last moments, the heat cumulating slowly inside of him to unnatural levels until containment was no longer an option. A spontaneous combustion of sorts then occurs, throwing him into a beautiful bouquet of spark and ash along with his exoskeleton, which is what I am now treading slowy around in hopscotch style stepping to avoid laceration. Even in death, he can cause pain and loss.

     As so can ghosts, which will be my next installation, since it seems I need a break from web designing for a spell or two due to an undeniable urge to spend more time holding hands with introspection.


 

Necropants

 http://disinfo.com/2013/10/horrifying-necropants-iceland/
 
    After all of the things I've read and learned about concerning witchcraft and the supernatural, I have never heard of Necropants.  I'm honestly surprised it hasn't shown up in an episode of Supernatural thus far. 

Dog shaming

Dog Shaming
     I'm infatuated with this site. I've been visiting it almost daily for over a year now.  I have pets. You could say it is a small colony of pets. These include a one year old American Bulldog named Louise, a soon to be 13 year old Boston Terrier named Mr. Pooze (aka Spaz), and a few felines to top it off: Kiki, Belushi, Coraline, Re-re, and the terrible twins Roger and Randy, who I'm wishing I named Sam and Dean after the Winchester brothers from Supernatural. Maybe I'll take those names for a spin and see how it works out.
     The site is a wonderful stroll through a multitude of public animal shamings.  It makes me feel less alone when it comes to the destruction and heartbreak that having animals can bring you. By heartbreak I mean the distraught feelings of losing one of your favorite sneakers to giant teeth and slobber, having to toss out your favorite bra due to your cat wanting the world to know that you belong to him, or coming home to a sea of shredded paper towels in the kitchen because you swore that your dog could NOT reach that far back on the counter.  I love my animals and I love having animals so these sorts of things come with the territory.  Besides being a comfort, I get many a chuckle out of seeing other people's posts of what their animals have done. I also realize that what's happened to me could be far worse. 

Most awesome thing I've seen in a while-Digital Dudz

Digital Dudz
     

     I came across this incredible YouTube post the other day and feel the need to talk about it. A gentleman by the name of Mark Rober used to work for NASA and quit his job to devote his time to his project, Digital Dudz. He's designed some t-shirts specifically made to house your iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Android operated devices while running his app that displays some gruesome moving images such as creepy eyeballs that dart, a beating heart, and gastly wounds. If you're not into the macabre, you can choose a cat with moving eyes or a picture whose eyes follow you. He's also designed some pretty rad morph suits for this year. 

     I always admire people for following their artistic talents, even if it means leaving a well paying job to do so. It's also the kind of path I'm heading in and it's great to see success in someone else. Inspiration!

The cephalopod and Lavinia

    I am fascinated by cephalopods. I saw a photo of the cutest baby octopus and I couldn't resist drawing him. I know he's going to stick around for a while, maybe cross stitched into a pillow or some such.

     My style of drawing has always been that of a cartoonish nature. I've never felt a desire to mirror the things I see. I suppose it's due to the fact that I still view the world through a child's eyes. 

     I introduce my baby cephalopod. I also introduce a very early stage rendering of a character I'm working on. She's made in my image thus far. We'll see how she develops as she's sketched out a few hundred times. 

I think I need one

Cutest coffee mug

I've seen some pretty nifty looking temperature changing mugs over the last year or so but this one is just adorable and right up my alley. I drink enough coffee in a day, why not give it a face. Only $10 on Amazon!

pen fetish

I carry a pencil case with me everywhere which contains my most favorite writing and drawing utensils.  I may have to buy a new one.





http://www.temptationgifts.com/gifts-by-brand/happy-jackson/stationery/wild-and-wolf-happy-jackson-pen-orgy-pencil-case.html

Abject rumination day 1

I want to wear my back pockets on the front. 

the age old excuse

I had something written that I was going to share but my dog ate it.
She really did.
She is a moose.
She can reach things that I don't think she possibly can.
She waits until I leave and then she strikes.

It was my fault.
I wrote something, spur of the moment, on the back of an empty macaroni & cheese packet.
The words must have been palatable with that awful powdered cheese.

Old Hag Syndrome

My boyfriend wrote a horror novel, it's been published, and it's ready to induce insomnia upon humanity. It is also awaiting the green light with One Eyed Dog Films, where the screenplay based on the novel was picked up for the big screen. They've got Victor Salva on board as Director thus far. Time in itself is sometimes a horror story waiting to be written.

If you're looking to lose sleep, why not have a read?  I introduce you to Tim Dankanich and his wonderfully horrific mind:

Old Hag Syndrome Barnes & Noble

Old Hag Syndrome Amazon.com

Old Hag Syndrome Vagabondage Press Books

Happy early Halloween!

Fage

Fage Yogurt
I can't even begin to express how much I love this yogurt. I have the type of personality that when I find something I really like, I can't quit it. Whatever it is, I become completely obsessed. Thankfully this time it's with something that's really good for the body.
Trying to extract all the bullshit that you've put into your body over years of a closed eye to just how much junk there is in the food we eat is somewhat of a monumental task. I started slow and easy, namely with this yogurt. It's got a good amount of protein and has the probiotics that are good for your guts. I'd like my guts to be in top shape, thanks. I've been getting the 0% Fage and eating it alone and putting it with things I'd never dream of, like butternut squash soup. It's great with honey or pure fruit spreads as well or you could just dip whatever you're noshing on right in there and dress that shit up.
They've got some great recipes on their site where even if you're being a nutcase like me and cutting everything out, you can still manage to get something good to eat out of it. 

Right

this place isn't right

hard to walk on new legs

all is different

bug bite on your hand that wasn't there yesterday

predicts the future today

throw everything you know

wonder, rediscover

what you're meant to be

what you couldn't see

beneath years, under layers

doing what you don't want to do 

makes you who you've always supposed to have been

REWIRE

WE

DIE

It's almost here

Fall, that is, although some trees are blasting with brilliant dying color right now in my area. I live in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. This is an eye catching infograph I found earlier today. 

taste

sometimes things don’t taste right
sabotaging little monsters
sometimes things don’t look right
faces and places skewed
sometimes things don’t sound right
whispers cease, voices air through machines
metal blades touching ghost limbs
shattering inside of me

i’m breaking

always there despite change
somewhere, something
amongst my internal universe
something that won’t release
a dark star that won’t die
there is no peace from this

i’m faking

should i, shouldn’t i
remember to walk in reverse     fast enough
covered in everything, decades full
if i could just pinpoint the maps
maybe i could see what i should

spin cycle drain

Went to the lake to my dismay
Hoped for the best

Got the worst
Hot sun
Biting flies

Screaming kid behind me that just keeps screaming at everything
What kind of kid is he going to be, holy shit

His parents look like high-schoolers and speak like camp counselors. 
They feed the flames that are his screams

Nephew yells at geese
Throws sand at them
 
I secretly hope he gets bitten

 
I really want to get out of here
Wish I was at home with HIM while he writes
 
The mother is next to me
Even her sneeze annoys me
 
Battery low
Geese are honking
 
 
 
 
Wish I were drunk
 
Those kids won't shut up
Why do they have to yell so much?

So loud

Their voices echo within the woods

sounding like the voices of dead children who used to play here

.drawing.

I draw. Often. Most everything that reaches my hands is left containing some form of my infamous doodles or sketches whether it's paper, walls, shoes, and even some fruits have been left looking angry and bearded.

I think. Often.  Today seems to be a high functioning type of day. I downloaded a new app for my iPhone called "Map the Internet" by Peer 1 Hosting.  It's pretty rad in my book.   It gives you a peek at the internet from a global perspective.  At first play, I felt like Tony Stark, manipulating the world between my fingers, spinning it and making it larger and smaller with a slight touch.  When I switched to Network view as opposed to Global View, I squealed a bit and then my brain went full speed into a thought process about the universe and all the way back down to a cellular level of existence.  Amazing. If you'd like to check it out, it's available for iPhone & iPad via the AppStore or if you use an Android device, via Google Play.  I won't get into detail but I will direct you to their website:  http://www.peer1.com/blog/peer-1-hosting-launches-map-of-the-internet-app


I leave you with some zombie mushrooms I had been working on prior to Valentine's Day that actually wound up on my boyfriend's Valentine's Day card. 

grocery store parking lot thoughts

....
I let the man in a flatbed truck, wearing thick glasses and smoking a cigarette, continue pulling out in front of me in the grocery store parking lot.  When he noticed me, I waved him through. He waved back with genuine politeness.

You don’t get much of that kind of politeness these days.

He had just exited the liquor store with his booze.  He was probably on his way home after a long day of work on the farm and this was his afternoon reward to himself. He was going to go home, pour a drink, and sit on the porch with his pack of cigarettes as both the sun and temperature went down.  He wasn’t thinking about life. He wasn’t thinking about death. He just was.  He was a guy driving to the store and back, cigarette in mouth, not caring about contracting cancer from smoking, not caring about causing a fender bender in the grocery store parking lot, not caring about eating too much or not enough. He was just being who he was.

Which lead me to thinking about death and fear.

Why are we afraid of death?

Is it fear of leaving loved ones behind? Is it fear of a long battle with some awful disease and going into debt because of it, if you even survive? Is it fear of the unknown? We make choices out of fear. Sometimes they are the right choices, other times they are the wrong ones.

This guy didn’t care about those things.  He was just doing what he was doing. 

Of course I could be wrong about him and he’s rapidly firing thoughts at the same pace that I do, but for a brief moment, he was a part of what made me decide that I just don’t need to care so much all the time.  Things will happen when they happen, whether I accelerate that process or not is of no matter.  I don’t restrict myself of things that I enjoy that are bad for me because I want to be healthy, I do it out of fear, and I loathe restrictions.  When I was a child, I created this barrier of anxiety to help me feel secure, to feel like I had boundaries where there were none, to harness a vivid imagination and keep it from letting the vampires, ghouls, zombies, ghosts, my mother, and Santa Claus from killing me. I still carry this barrier with me today. I had forgotten why it was there or how it came to be until yesterday.

Until some guy, smoking a cigarette, driving a blue flatbed truck after leaving the liquor store, pulled out in front of me in the grocery store parking lot.

irreverant

I was going to post about web designing and what it does for me but I feel that's been done a thousand times over.
Moving on to what I do regularly:

I wonder what these people are going to do when they have nothing to complain about

Except for survival

When they can’t take showers

When they can’t eat what they do

I’ve tried to fit in

That’s why I work here in the first place

To fit in

I’ve tried to drop my idiosyncrasies

Hide them and blend in

But it’s getting too difficult to keep up with as I age

As I experience more

Things I never thought I would

Or tried to protect myself from experiencing

Through rituals of anxiety

A constant state of something just to feel anything

To control something

To be something other than what I think I am

We don’t talk anymore

Everywhere you go

People are angry

Quick to judge

We don’t help each other anymore

Except in rare instances

Or in secluded areas

Such as my house in the woods

But here

I’ve watched the way others watch each other

Or who pays attention to whom

The hierarchy of importance is dull and unfounded

The ruse that they all live in

Confuses me

But I go along with it

They do things just to do them

or is it just doing things

-nothing I do is without thought-

Watching them pains me at times

And at times I can’t breathe

so confined to their plastic walled ant farm

happy

content

pretend play

all I hear are voices of pretend

little figurines placed in the building

acting out life 

the fake laughter frightens me the most

Networking

Is it just me or does there seem to be a hell of a lot of places out there to show and share your work and also network with other artists? I'm finding it hard to decide what I would like to keep up with and what I would like to ditch due to time constraints. 

I think most of us are on Facebook, and if you're an artist you have your personal Facebook and also your business Facebook.  Then we have Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, DeviantArt, Tumblr, Pinterest, Bluecanvas, and Behance (I'm sure I'm missing more).  If you're selling work you have Etsy & RedBubble, and DeviantArt has a feature where you can sell your work via a Prints Shop. 

There are ways to avoid having to log into each site and post such as setting them up to post across the board to other sites using some software downloads but then you get hashtags where they don't belong, such as on Facebook. 

I guess ultimately it comes down to using each and finding which you like best. 


Here's another drawing of the day.  A little sketch for stress relief and brainstorming.