for the few who might still watch me and wonder where I have been, In April of 2018 my Husband whom I love dearly and still share custody of an 18 year old Autistic Daughter with and I AM sealed to for time and all eternity filed for divorce.

this cruel and tragic turn of events left me shattered emotionally spiritually financially socially legally and well, in basically any way a person can be shattered, and I am hardly beginning to recover. have no Idea who or what I will be when I finally do began to truly recover, although I'm sure I will in time.

what brought me here this time was I am working on editing my very random story as it is posted on Paragangia wiki at what used to be called wikia and is now called fandom.

I am still my only fan but oh well...I stumble forward to keep from falling back I guess.

I've been, emotionally, rather tending towards suicidal thoughts lately, though I would never chose that path. I console myself that since I'm 56 and a half I need only wait about 53and a half more years. I can do that because I made it through these first 56 and half, which wasn't easy.

LOL

other than that I'm doing good. busy trying to put 20 years of hoarding in order in a tiny apartment and trying to earn enough money to survive. not making any artwork to speak of.

I'm working part time as a personal assistant for a lady who is blind and had a stroke, and I am also working part time with the therapeutic recreation program [helping developmentally disabled adults with crafts gardening cooking bowling etc]

I need to get myself going to find a job I can actually survive on. oh well.

This was my second time going to this event which is the only fur event I have ever been able to attend. it was awesome, I took my husband and Daughter this time, and we all had a good time.

What I love about the fur community is how welcoming we are to everyone even if they don't fit in with our more typical forms of strangeness.

Even though we very don't fit in being all entirely heterosexual and being Mormon, and all that, newish to the furry community and not always understanding things, but still we were welcomed as part of the community in a very comfortable way by pretty much everyone there.

The wild nights community is a very nice group of people though also a very gay and gender confused bunch of people overall.

I could go on and on about that but I won't

anyhow. I had a great time and enjoyed spending time in the dining hall which is the informal artists ally of this event, SO... I've finally reached the point where I seriously want to start making badges.

So I'm gonna need a few flurries to practice on. I doubt I have many watchers here anymore, but whoever reads this, would you be interested in me drawing a badge for you for practice?

NO charge for the art work, but if you want it sent to you I'd have to charge for the cost of lamination and maiing, etc.

let me know if you might be interested. I'll post up a few things I made at the con to show you what sort of things I can make.

I'm particularly interested in working with snakeskin. you'll see what I mean when I post it.

I was considering titling this "wow has it really been 7 month?" since the last journal I wrote was called "wow has it really been 8 months."

at this rate, I'll be back in 6 months, and then again in 5, and then 4...etc...and in about 3 or 4 years I'll be fully active again, right? ...lol...

Real life has been real busy lately and I haven't had a computer for several months. but I have a new laptop so I'm starting to get caught up on things.

it's been a crazy year, lots of family medical crises and such. But I'm doing good right now.

didn't have a computer for a time, but I'm getting it set up again and picking up things which got left off for a few months...

I have rats. I just got a pair of rats. snake food sort of Rats, they are white with red eyes and tan heads and a bit of a tan stripe down the back, and they are so cute, even if they are just snake food rats. the Boy is named Len and the girl is named Speedy. my daughter named them. I'm going to rename the girl when I think of something better. she's named after another rat who looked a lot like her and was named Speedy, Nad I want her to have her own individual name because she has her own individual personality. Len is named after the Vocaloid Len

and they got me thinking about wanting to finish my fur suit head, even though I need first to be working on my cosplay for NAka Kon in March first, because the even for which I want the fur suit finished is not until April.

I am going to cosplay Brave Frontier Miku. MIku is a vocaloid--my daughter loves vocaloids, I don't especially...and Brave frontier is a iPad game which I do love. they made character in the game based on MIku and I think she will be interesting for a cosplay project because she has really big hair. and Aubyn is cosplaying vocalic Len who is her favorite right now. thus because of Brave frontier I can cosplay something I like not just something she likes and still match with her.

right now I also am for a few months babysitting a guinea pig named chocolate who "WEEEEEEK"-s all night and a baby iguana named Steve who is going to be a great big iguana by the time he goes home. I forgot how fast those things grow..WOW...that's why I promised myself I'd never get another iguana after the last one. they get too big too fast.

and my three chickens who I got in the spring finally decided to lay some eggs.

Fish, crawdads, I won't detail a lll those for now...still have my little dog Kuriboh, and my bunny crystal. planning to get a kitten in the spring. I think that's all the animal news.

as for art and writing, I haven't been doing much the past few months, but I'll be having more time now my daughter is back in public school rather than homeschool, so maybe I'll get caught up on that also, who knows.

my husband is out of the hospital now, he's doing much better.

the furry campout I went to was wonderful, even though I missed more than half of it because of Roy being in the hospital, and ended up driving 7 hours there alone in the middle of the night and 7 hours back alone starting out mid-afternoon, so the last two hours was in the dark.

but it was a fabulously beautiful place, and the furries were all wonderful and I wore my rat tail even though the rest of my rat didn't get done, and the tail looked great and was fun, and I helped sell concessions and cooked french toast.

and I got several nice artworks from various people, and a nice piece of fur, and I made some dreamcatchers while listening to panels and the auction, and learned about the safari exotic animal sanctuary which I might take my daughter to volunteer at, because that would be really cool for her and they need volunteers.

anyhow, it was great. and I made connections with all the semi-local fur groups, all three of which are about two hours drive from me, so I'm thinking of a starting an organization for my area. some of the two hours away people said they would come if I organized an event in my area. one guy even said he would cook for us...lol...

looking forward to next year.

April 2014...three weeks ago I found out there was a camping event happening only one state away from me april 24, I talked to my husband and we decided he wasn't up to going camping because he's been having health problems. Then the next day I mentioned it to my furry friend from church who lives down the street, and turns out she is temporarily unemployed and would really like to get away, and we could go in her car [not having a car I could take for that long was the reason I couldn't go without my husband and my daughter]

so I worked this all out with my family, sent my grandson I take care of off to his other grandparents for the whole week, started having fun trying to make a rat outfit, paid the enrollment cost for the event, made plans with my furry friends down the street...I've never been to any sort of a furry event and I love camping and I really need a break from my very stressful homelife, so I'm very excited to actually get to do this...

so

Yesterday evening my husband Roy started having really bad pain in his legs and his tummy [he'd been having trouble for a few days but it got suddenly much worse] so I took him to Topeka VA to see his Doctor and they hospitalized him for a 5 day course of Antibiotics, among other things. [he needs to get his blood sugar down]

so

I still want to go, because I've been looking forward to it, and I already committed to go with my friends, I don't want to let them down, ..

SO

I'm still planning to go, I guess.... Roy helped make plans for my daughter and she's excited about getting to stay with her niece, but on the other hand, the doctors are not sure what's wrong with Roy [this is the 5th time he's be in the hospital in the past year] and I'm feeling a bit iffy about being 7 hours away without a car while he's in the hospital and my slightly autistic Daughter being passed around between various friends and family members for 2 days which could turn into 5 days if for some reason they keep Roy longer.

coincidentally day before yesterday my iPad got broken and the protection plan will replace it but I won't get it back until while I am gone camping. I had several things I wanted to post here related to my fursona but I never got to it. and the pictures were on my iPad, so I'm not sure what all I'll be able to recover from that or when, but not now, anyhow....oh well....

and today I planted two weeping willow trees than my mom gave me, which are started from twigs off her tree which I use to make hoops for dreamcatchers.

I've been waiting for those trees for awhile, so that was good, but getting them today just took more time out of the day when I needed more time to get everything in order for this adventure. and I was taking care of my Son who was sick.

that's a pretty good sample of how my life has been going I guess.

officially it's still winter, but the snow is getting shorter and warmer so I think it's spring.

I've been here so rarely these past few years that I think I only have 2-3 friends still here, but I still care about those few, and several others I watch who don't watch back, so here's an update.

I've been busy, growing spiritually healing emotionally languishing physically, home schooling my daughter and babysitting my grandson who is turning 2 in a few days.

My daughter who is 14 is very into cosplay [with emphasis on the PLAY] so we are working on our cosplay outfits for Nakakon, an ANime convention in the Kansas CIty area in mid MArch.

one of the persons who are going with us is a fursuiter and might fur suit, so that's what got me thinking about fur affinity and that I've been very inactive here lately.

also I've been very active on Storm artist lately, in fact I am organizing an Art Jam there for the weekend after Nakakon. I'll probably post more about that later, as I might invite people outside of Storm to participate.

here's the link though in case I confused anyone with the mention.http://www.storm-artists.net/news/421 [my name on storm is Jadis, with the teal and pink yin yang icon. I'm NOT a bigshot there, anyone is able to make news articles and community projects, jsut lately im the only one who has been doing it that's why I'm all over the front page right now]

anyhow, i hope you are all well, I'll stop by and look at what you're posting lately after I go get some more work done on my cosplay.

Wow I'm never here anymore...this goes for all online things, and actually, for my computer as a whole. I"ve been so busy with real life thinsg I haven't had time for writing or anything lately. it's probably going to be this way for awhile.

I've started a new business selling arts and crafts at Pow Wows and craft fairs and such. I'm also homeschooling my daughter now and taking care of my grandson who is 18 months old. My husband has been having several new [and old] medical issues, so I've spent a fair amount of time waiting in waiting rooms, which is a good time for weaving dreamcatchers and such.

the garden did quite well this year. I no longer have any chickens but I now have 5 very cute puppies. and alot of crayfish.

I don't really have much to say, but just wanted to let people know I'm still alive in case anyone wondered. I'll be back in due time.

I see it's been almost a year since I updated my journal here.

I haven't been online so much this past year because I busy with RL stuff, mostly family stuff but I also have a part time job now and I'm busy getting the garden going this time of year etc.

I might be homeschooling my daughter next year, which will leave me even less time.

being busy, I've been only keeping up one one of the 4 art sites I used to keep up, that one is Storm-artists.net. if anyone here wants to find me online that's the place to look currently, my username there is Jadis. http://jadis.storm-artists.net

art I've been doing lately mostly is not fur related anyhow.

I might look and see if I have anything recent fur related so I could add something new.

I got an ipad and a new computer for christmas, and a drawing tablet, so things I post lately are mostly digital coloring experiments and Ipad photos of odd things like memory foam carvings or whatever. also alot of the art I ahve done lately has been related to storm-artists projects such as art jam, and thus not suitable for other sites.

anyhow, so thats where I am.

hope you are well. I might go check up on everyone here soon, since I'm back for a moment.

My husband is on a camping trip for the next week, so I'm getting caught up on things like art and internet and housework

I've been doing some art and photography, but nothing very furry, I'm also writing a romance novel but it isn't furry either, so I haven't had much to share here lately.

my pets are getting less. tonight I gave the last male snail of my snail mail snails to Erica. she has still the two I gave her of the snail mail snails, and she thinks they are both girls, so we are giving that generation one more chance to lay viable eggs.

she had blue snail babies, and gave me 10 but only one of mine survived,--the one I gave to my daughter, to put with her 2 second generation snail mail snails. and now most of hers are dying too. but the one we have is doing very well.

one of my turtles which I now have outside has vanished, so I might have less of those too. maybe she will turn up. sorta sad because I've had her since she was a tiny baby about 4 or 5 years ago.

my daughters fluffy but mean hamster died. I'll miss him, He didn't like me but he liked me more than he liked anyone else.

we have two new ferrets that we got a few weeks ago. got them from the animal shelter, went to look at puppies just cause we were in the area and saw them and my husband fell in love with them.THey are very cute, I want to draw pictures of them but I haven't gotten to it yet, I haven't even taken photos. Lucky is deaf and blind and old, Sparky is young and hyper and always trying to escape.

total pets:

2 ferrets, 5 apple snails, 2 crawdads, one plecostimous, a few guppies, 2 gold fish, 2 very old dwarf hamsters, one turtle ...

...and tomorrow mom is going to give me a few of her new chicks to raise for her.

that's about all the furry or art or animal related news I can think of.

growing a garden, walking in the river, etc. --the summer is starting to get hot, it was up around 100 degrees F. today

I just found out I have a furry Neighbor.

A friend who lives down the street has a housemate, and they were out in the yard when I went by this morning so I stopped to chat, and he was carving something out of foam, so I asked what it was for and he said...a fursuit!

I've been wanting to learn more about making fursuits, so I'm really excited to have a nearby neighbor who is doing this so we can learn from eachother. He has an account here but I couldn't find his account name, I'll have to go ask him again, I guess.

this is the first time since I became interested in fur suits a couple of years ago,that I have ever met in person anyone the least bit interested in fursuits, so I'm quite pleased.

*** ******
in other news, I've been insanely busy with church and family stuff these past two months, with no time for art or online stuff, so that's why I've been almost non--existent here. Several of the things I was busy with have ended now so it's time for catching up on neglected creation and online things.

I did the art Jam on storm-artist.net this weekend, even though I was also working on the excursion train [are there train furries? because I would love to see that train filled up with fur suits, that would be awesome]

Sometime soon I will post a photo of my train. I have set aside my conductor training for the time being because they are in desperate need of car hosts, but not as desperately needing conductors, and it's inconvenient for me and Roy to do student runs at the same time.

This weekend we are going to go Abilene to help out with the Memorial Day run of the steam engine.

I'm also planting a garden this year, which I haven't done for several years. I have lots of flowers and Herbs, plus some tomatoes and peppers and Okra and such.

ummm...what else?

My Grandbaby, Rodrick,is doing well. He's almost 3 months old.

I'm going camping at Tuttle Puddle [AKA Tuttle Creek RIver Pond] for a few days next week, with my friend Erica, my two daughters, my grandson and maybe my stepdaughter. we usually go to Nebraska but can't afford to drive up there this year.

ummm

if any of you are active on sheezy art I have reactivated my account there, and my name there is still Jadisofeternity just like my DA account.

I think that's the basic news.

my daughter Angie had her baby at 2:30 am this morning, His name is Rodrick, he was deliverd by c section, 6 pounds 11 oz, 19 inches long.

my first biological grand child. [I have 6 others by marriage and adoption]

I love this stuff. and at least this one is short enough I have time to do it, even if everyone who read my journal responds :D



Comment below and I will...
1. Tell you something I'll learn about you by looking at your FA page for 13 seconds.
2. Tell you which color you remind me of.
3. Tell you my first memory of you.
4. Tell you what Pokemon you remind me of.
5. Ask you something I've always wondered about you, and your answer has to be as vague as possible to keep the suspense.
6. Tell you my favorite thing about you.
7. Give you a weird nickname
8. Tell you what's on my shirt right now.
9. Challenge you to post this on your journal

IF I'm going to post it here, it ought to be animal related, but I'll try anything [anything clean and not offensive, anyhow].

in the past animal related ones I have done include dogs cats fish frogs snakes spiders butterflies dragons swans owls ..umm... probably a few others which don't come to mind right off.

I've also done angels, trees, flowers, snowmen, anime people etc.

I'll try anything you suggest, but if it doesn't work I might not take time to scan and post it.

any suggestions what to try this time?

edit: for people who don't read titles but read the journal, this is referring to cut paper snowflakes.

my apple snail eggs hatched last night [THe ones I posted photos of, from the snails I got Snail mailed from an FA friend]

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:22585731 the clean art group I belong to and am trying to support and promote is holding a contest/raffle thing, for which we have 5 days to submit a reference sheet, one of those will be chosen as the topic of the contest, and we'll all create clean art based on that persona/fursona.

sounds like great fun to me. So please share this information with all your friends who like clean art.

and if you or anyone you know likes clean art, support this group.

since I am going to start trying to write a Nanonovel tomorrow, I've decided I'm going to stop trying to write a journal absolutely everyday. I will probably still do it a few times a week for this month, when I have time.

went trick or treating with Aubyn Angie and Hayley this evening...me and the two big girls' boyfriends followed along and stood in the street while the girls collected candy. it was fun. I dressed as Dr Holiday, Aubyn said I couldn't be Van Kleiss because Rex would never walk around town with Van Kleiss.

I also made a cute penguin hat for ANgie which she wore for trick or treating. it was fun.

Stake conference was wonderful and I made lots of cool doodles on my notes. I also was handed an opportunity I've been seeking for a long time, so good day at church overall.

my apple snails that I got in the snail mail from a friend on Furaffinity are laying eggs tonight... they have appeared to be mating for several days, so we have been hoping they would. it was cool that we actually got to watch her lay a few of them. My daughter Angie is very excited about the snail eggs because she has been very much wanting an apple snail of her own.

After church we carved pumpkins: Howl's Moving Castle themed pumpkins. I wanted to make Calcifer, I thought he'd be good, being made of fire, but Roy's pumpkin was more suitable for that project. We we agreed I would draw it and he would carve it out. Therefor Aubyn decided she wanted to make her pumpkin Howl. I drew that one too, according to her choice of scene and how to adapt it. she wanted him when he's laughing but in that picture his eyes were closed, and she wanted them open so I did eyes based on another picture. I doubt anyone but me and her could tell it was Howl but It doesn't matter because she was happy and carved it well and joyfully. Me and Angie thought Turnip Head was the perfect subject for a pumpkin, since he was already just a carved vegetable, so she decided to make him: her pumpkin was the perfect shape for that. I had the large lumpy pumpkin, which I had originally envisioned carving as a witch....so I decided to attempt old Sophie [the worst kind of witch the kind who cleans]. Again, you wouldn't guess it was her unless you knew, but we all had fun and ended up with some very interesting pumpkin sculptures in the end. I'll post photos in a few days.

I'm so behind on answering comments or looking what my friends have posted, I hope to have time to get caught up soon.

I am going to stake conference in Salina this afternoon, [translation for you non-LDS people, Stake conference is a regional church meeting having nothing to do either with slaying vampires or eating steak dinners]so I will be gone the rest of the day/evening. I’m wearing my pretty new dress I got from the sharing place for the first time. It looks good on me and It’s comfortable. I might wear my cork wedge beaded sandels I got from the thirftshop. They are just the right color, I think. The dress is a warm brown color with embroidered floral patterns on the bodice, the sandles have sort of earthtone-ish floral pattern bead embroidery on the cork soles. I’m not even gonna question how that is possible because it looks magical.

Had a good talk with my husband feeling good about life.

My old friend Raemanzu from DA is now my new friend Raemanzu on SA.n YAAAAAAAAAAAY for new friends on Storm Artists who are wonderful old friends whom I have the deepest respect for as a person as an artist and as a friend.

my Nano novel is going to be a fusion between 4 of my old writing projects, “Destiny of dreams”, “Ethparadu” and “Sunshine and Avenger”, plus a story written to give a context to my shape-shifting fursona, Jocarmen/Alex/Wildfire/Allissa ... that part also includes a character which will be based directly on my husband Roy, in the form a shapeshifter who takes the form of a dragon king. Daniel [protagonist of Ethparadu] or Sunshine [as in Sunshine and Avenger] will have a dream in which he is a knight in shining armor on a quest to defeat a dragon king who a reputation for eating knights. The knight will learn that dragons really subsist only on rocks, but shining armor and is delicious, even if, after sterilization with their fire breath, it is filled with the ashes of human flesh. Swords and lances are yummy, also. [dragons, such as Jayden, in my Destiny of dreams story have that sort of eating habits….I just realized that might explain why metal is so rare on the island they dwell on, and thinking of that, I wonder If I could also sneak the dragon with a ten pound tooth story into this one]

Later it will be learned that the dragon king, being a shape shifter, [the dream world they come from will be composed mostly of shape shifters, and those who cannot shift will be occasionally objects of discrimination] when in his natural form is a self-indulgent but lovable ad kind hearted rat. [Roy likes dragons, but must be a rat for this purpose, as I am a rat in this context]

I know, it’s not November yet, I’m just getting a head start on the brainstorming.

today I cleaned house, alot, and made a Generator Rex costume for my daughter.... [I'm pleased with it...all parts look cool, I haven't seen it all together on her yet though]....and took her to a boring party at her school [to which she wore last week's Circe costume because Rex wasn't done yet]. She's going to "Boo at the Zoo" in Topeka with some friends tomorrow, so I had to Rush and get the Rex costume done tonight for that.

lol is that short enough?

I think a daily journal of more than a paragraph long offered for more than a week and a half is not a good Idea. For the next week, starting tomorrow I am going to offer a very brief Daily journal. The rule for now will be no more than 3 main topics and no more than one short paragraph per topic. After a week I’ll go down to about one paragraph distilled from the most important events of the past day or plans for the coming day.

If I want to post a long rant about anything I’ll post it as a separate journal, not as part of the daily journal, and it will have a title stating it’s general content. I will try to keep rants down to one unifying theme, thought sometimes several diverse topic can be compiled under one unifying theme.

I feel good about my efforts to learn to write regular and concise journals, and I think if I have patience with myself in the learning, this skill will benefit me and those who watch me in the future. To those who watch me now, I thank you for your support and your patience in my learning process. Thank you very much.

In other news I might be rather busy for the next week or so, So I might not post one every day…busy, in this case, is a very good thing though…

Also, I have decided I AM going to TRY to do some semblance of a Nano Novel, though it surely won’t be a pure one, because I don’t want to start an all new project. I might be a destiny of dreams backstory, or a rewrite of one of several old stories I would like to revisit. That starts Nov. 1st, but I probably won’t start posting bits of it for a least a few days after that. Maybe I’ll also do daily Nano Novel illustration sketches.

time to try to stop being quite so long and off topic. Life.

I slept all morning because I had trouble sleeping last night: up most the night drawing really bad sketches of Van Kliess and Paragangians and even worse sketches of hands. I need to make some photo references and practice hands. Hands are very hard to draw and very important.

I’m working on round 2 of Aubyn’s Halloween costume: Generator Rex for the actual Halloween. I’ve been thinking about this costume for months. I’m relieved to have it almost done and when it is done, to never think about it again. I love projects being finished.

Speaking of perpetually unfinished projects, I am thinking of writing a Sent’ran Jenzar backstory as a Nano Novel. I seriously don’t have time for a Nano Novel, and precisely because of that I want to just drop everything and write one. I think I need to take a time out from my life and just be myself for awhile.

To take time out to write would be irresponsible, but I could get by with it. Like the time I went to England. Sometimes being irresponsible is the right choice.

What do you think? Should I drop everything and write for a month? Or is writing a Nano novel when more important things are being neglected irresponsible?

As I write this, my 12 year old Daughter is watching Rocky Horror Picture Show, how’s that for being an irresponsible parent?

**** ***

I feel good today. Time alone because Angie is sleeping Roy is in town and Aubyn at school.

3 things to share for today:

1)----

My online daily journal has been an interesting experiment, I have kept up pretty well so far,--missed only one day--- even though I resorted to long ramblings sometimes. The original plan was about two weeks. I’ve decided that after day #14 I am going to set a length limit, and for the next two weeks post every day a VERY SHORT daily journal, I think those will be more fun for the readers, even though it will be very difficult and time consuming for me to write them. Short is so much harder to write than long. The distillation process is tedious and frustrating, but I really want to master the skill of writing concisely. Any advice on how to write short and to the point personal journals?

2)

I’m doing a "soundtrack of my mind" experiment inspired by my ramblings on that topic from my daily journal #10. I was inspired this morning, after reading the wonderful optimistic comments I received on Journal #10 on Furaffinity, to sing part of a hymn I only knew the first phrase of though I knew the whole tune, and I decided then and there to take this as inspiration from the Holy Spirit, and find the song in the hymnbook, as it seemed a proper celebratory song. The part I knew says “Glory to God on high, let heaven and earth repy.”

So I looked it up expecting it to be, in keeping with the thoughts which inspired the inspiration, a song celebtating life and the world [something like “how great though art”, another song which has done soundtrack duty at one time…y’know ---

“Oh lord my God,
when I in awesome wonder,
consider all the worlds they hands have made,
I see the rain, I hear the rolling thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed

…then sings my soul, my savior unto thee
how great thou art, how great thou art…” …etc.

SO I looked up this song which the Spirit brought to mind, and it is not about that, it is instead a celebration of the atonement.

“Glory to God on high
let heaven and earth reply
praise ye his name,
his love and grace adore
who all our sorrows bore
sing aloud evermore:
“Worthy the Lamb!”

Jesus our lord and God
bore sin’s temendous load
Praise ye His Name
tell what his arm has done
what spoils from death he won
sing his great name alone
“Worthy the Lamb!”

Let all the hosts above
join in one song of love
praising his name,
to him ascribed be
honor and majesty
through all eternity
“Worthy the Lamb!”

though I DO have a testimony of Jesus and the atonement, This part of the Gospel has been something I struggle to fully embrace and own, wanting to maintain my culturally relative stance, but there does come a point where one must fully celebrate the bits of one’s chosen faith which fully set it apart from all others rather than the parts which merely unify us all as his children.

As an added bonus, this song will probably call forth lamb related artwork, and thus I will have something I can actually post on Furaffinity without a lot of justification.

NEXT, and last journal point for the day:

3

This journal project has got me thinking about the difference between FA SA.n and DA, as far as how I relate to my community there. FA is fast. I post nature photos, I get instant favs. If I’m feeling lonely and wanting online attention, I post zoo photos on FA because it’s fast. It’s also impersonal in its response to art. I get few comments. On Journals, FA is fast in a different way. Journals are replied to same day or not at all, but journal replies are less impersonal than the average response to Zoo photos, because I have a few friends here. FA is a very “in the Now” place for me. I haven’t been here long, I have little history here. I like that.

DA on the other hand, is more of a long term thing. There are people on DA I have been friends with for many years, In some sense we have grown up together. There are people who will comment on long journals posted months ago. Art posted years ago often gets a fav now and then. A Rex fan art on DA goes on getting occasional favs and comments for months, whereas on any other site it vanishes in an instant. Posting something on DA is more of a long term investment. I like that also.

SA.n is a community in a sense no other site is. I don’t gather my little group there, I go out into the larger community and interact with the general membership and the admins. I spend more time on the front page with Chat box conversations and news articles and commenting on recent submissions than I spend on my own page, which gets few comments and little attention. For example, I got a few comments on my fist two daily journals there, and none since, although I am active in the community, making features on the front page and commenting on art and journals of others.

SA.n is my favorite art community because it is more community than the others. I belong to the community there, not to one little isolated corner of one neighborhood in the community

I hate having things going on in my life that I don’t feel I should share openly because to do so would in a way violate someone else’s confidentiality.

Yeah. Anyhow, that’s why no daily journal from yesterday and why I am not at my tap dancing lesson this morning and why I feel sick because I haven’t got enough sleep lately. So, where is the lemonade for this particular batch of lemons?

I’m getting better about still wanting to live even when life is going badly. By experiencing terrible things we become strong enough to face more terrible things. I’m beginning to embrace this challenge to some degree even when I am asleep, but I would still rather not have to face it. My knee jerk reaction isn’t to run and hide anymore, but I’m still a bit resentful that my life is overall unpleasant due to the inconsiderate bad choices of people who claim to care about me, but seem only to care if I give them what they want, who sometimes want things I can’t or I feel I shouldn’t give.

That’s my life right now.

In other news, at Aubyn’s insistence, I have watched Howl’s Moving Castle 3+ times in the past two days, so my brain is deeply invested in that parable. It is a very right brain subconscious parable. I have long wanted to make it conscious and rational, and watching it over and over with Aubyn and learning the lines so we can role-play it together is reawakening that desire.

What do I learn about my self from Howl’s Moving Castle?

My favorite parts are these: [A favorite part tells what a person values]
When he rescues her from the soldiers.
When they are walking in the air and they are walking in step.
When she’s cleaning the fireplace and puts Calcifer in a bucket and Howl says very calmly “I’d appreciate it if you would not torment my friend”
When Sophie compliments Calcifer and he says “she likes my spark”
Howl’s melt down[I love that whole scene].
When he sits up with his eyes all wide and asks her to go to the castle in his place [my favorite instant in the movie].
After the confrontation with Suliman when he says “You saved me, Sophie. I was in big trouble back there”
When Howl moves the house to the hat shop place and takes her to the garden and she gets young and says “I don’t care if you’re a monster.”
When Sophie gives her hair to Calcifer.
When child Howl makes his deal with Calcifer
Right after that when Sophie calls out to them and can’t stop crying.
When she pushes back his feathers to see his face.
When he turns back into a man and she rolls him over
When the witch gives Sophie Howl’s heart
When Sophie asks Calcifer if he’ll be ok if Howl gets his heart back.
When Sophie puts back Howl’s heart, praying for both Howl and Calcifer
When Howl says “your hair is like starlight”

I also love how Howl constantly gives Sophie sincere compliments. When they are walking in step “you are a natural” when Calcifer says she bullied him “not many people can do that” the several times he tells her she is beautiful, etc.

SO…apparently I like…Helping[rescuing]. I also like seeing beyond the outside image, setting aside the outside image, and forgiveness/empathy. I like sincere compliments.

The meltdown is my favorite scene and it has all that…he’s having his image stripped away, he needs her to rescue him, and she gives him sincere compliments when his hair goes to it’s natural color. [“look at this shade, it’s even better”] when she says “he’s just having a tantrum” she exemplifies empathy. This scene also has the silent pun of him melting down literally, and her walking out in exasperation and coming back[empathy and forgiveness] and him losing his towel on the way up the stairs, and at the end “now I have to mop again.”

I also like unity/cooperation, Several of the scenes I like represent that. Walking in step, her agreeing to visit the king, her helping him with Sulliman, the witch giving Sophie Howl’s heart, Sophie giving Calcifer her hair.

I like commitment, which is expressed in Howl moving the house to connect to her original place and Sophie not caring if he’s a monster. I see Sophie’s return in the meltdown scene as her moment of final commitment to Howl, and the scene where he asks her to go to the king for him represents his moment of final commitment [she becomes “Mrs Pendragon” at that point, and he gives her a ring to always bring her home to him and where his heart is], which is probably why those two are my most favorite parts of the movie. Moving house officially establishes that commitment.

***** ******
I was also thinking about the soundtrack of my mind, which is what I call the song, at any given which time I tend to sing to myself more often than any other song because it somehow represents my current feelings. Currently that is the second verse of a hymn called how firm a foundation, which goes “fear not I am with you oh be not afraid, for I am thy God and will still give thee aid…” a few years ago, the soundtrack of my mind was “I wrote you a letter on a chocolate box, should I send it off to sea, in an old wine bottle with a cork on top, but you know that I don’t drink. let me drown my sorrow in your sea of dreams, ride the river of your darkness to the ocean of light, where the lightning waves crash on silent shores…”[that’s about internet friendship, in case you can’t tell] and then for awhile it was “In the end you never really mattered, just a very small part of my life, what you took from me was really nothing, just a very small piece of my heart.”

When I was a teenager, the soundtrack of my mind was the bohemian rhapsody [y’know—“Is this the real life, is this just fantasy, caught in a land slide no escape from reality…”]. When I was a little child it was “ There’s a web like a spiderweb made of silk or light and shadow, spun by the moon in my room at night, it’s a web made to catch a dream, hold it tight till I awaken, as if to tell me, that dreaming’s all right.” Suicide is painless fell somewhere between spider web and the Bohemian rhapsody.

I think it’s odd or sad or crazy or maybe just interesting that I am so lost to myself that I resort to this sort of divination to try to discover my own thoughts and feelings.

Anyhow, I’m just noticing that I’ve been stuck on “fear not I am with you” for a long time now, I think I’m about due for something new, preferably something more positive.

I've been gone all day in Topeka, and Haven't had time to update my SA.n feature things or answer comments, I'm a few days behind on that, sorry :(

Today I watched the new episode of Generator Rex in which 6 loses his memory. it's like every episode they seem to add something new, and then not follow up on it in the following episodes. I hope they start following up on some of these things soon. it's getting a little random. Random or not, though, I'm still loving it.

[maybe it was always that random and I didn't notice because I never watched any of it in order since I was introduced to it between seasons, and this is the first current episodes I have watched of it]

then I went and did a bunch of church stuff, and the I went to topeka to take my daughter to a party and ate "endless shrimp" at red lobster and didn't end up getting home until bedtime.

I wore my VK costume, ---just the clothes part, as I have not built the hand or the collar yet.--- it was fun. My hair doesn't hang down in my face quite right for him though, it's just a bit too wavy

so, that's it for today.