Audrizzle

Practiced with the Wacom. Went for a little longer than usual this time, this took about 2.5 hours. I did it just as practice which is why it's far from perfect, but I think it's pretty good for just practice.


This is my cousin Cahalen, who played here in Knoxville at Preservation Pub last month. He was fantastic! I'm so proud he's so talented. Check his tour dates, he's always playing everywhere, I recommend that everyone go see him!

Anyway.
Not a whole lot de nouveau is going on, I have been thinking really really hard about getting a job and have even applied to a couple. But mostly what I've been doing is thinking, as opposed to going out and doing.

This is partially because I am sick as a very sick person. I did not write "sick as a dog" because I don't know many sick dogs.
Also this: once I was at my mom's house and her dog Loopy threw up on the carpet, so I went to the kitchen to get a paper towel. When I got back, Loopy had just finished licking up & eating her vomit from the floor.
When I'm sick, I don't do that.

I guess what I thought I had was a sinus infection, because at the beginning of last week it was mainly my nasal area that was giving me trouble (in the form of... well, I'll not go into details) but since then my throat has started hurting a lot, and last Tuesday my chest was really bugging me too. Luckily that's mostly gone, so it's just the sinuses and my throat being itchy & sore.
Also mild fever, 100.2 degrees.

But I've had a mild fever pretty consistently for the last 2 or 3 months. Which isn't fun, but at least the weather's cooling down outside. And boy, is it beautiful!

Knitting is my usual fall sport, and this year is no different.

The other thing that's a whole lot of fun is Wii.

I think my favorite game right now is Groovin' Blocks.
It's like Tetris meets Dance Dance Revolution. That's pretty much the best way I can describe it.

Working on my art, still reading "The Magus", trying to organizize the apartment, taking cough syrup and mucinex. Oh, what a joyous life.

Hopefully I will be better by next week, because next Thursday is my BIRTHDAY! WOOHOO! Actually I don't really care. My mom is coming to town, though, which should be interesting.

Also, sad news: Timothy Brown passed away last week.

He was a really great guy, and very good friends with my mom. When she was queen, he was her King.



Rest In Peace, King Captain Timothy.

Labels: art, death, fall, mom, wacom, wii

I'm not a big person for posting links, but right now I am just fascinated.

I mean there is so much art done with corpses these days that it's not really all that shocking anymore.

see: Ferrarri Forever - "Marco Evaristti is searching for a person on the verge of death, who wants to donate his body..." to be placed in an awesome Ferrari as 'art'!

It's funny, though, because I have always said that I would like to donate my body to art after I die. Art, then cannibalism, then science, in that order. But only art in a public sense - in a gallery at least for a while and if it does end up in someone's private collection, i would like there to be high resolution prints of it available online, no matter what.

At first my thought is "I'm not sure if I would want my name associated with it, though, what if it made me look bad?" Then I realize "Wait, I'd be dead, why would I care if I looked bad?" I don't know. I guess most bodies that are donated are donated anonymously.

Speaking of donating bodies... I was very shocked to hear about this almost 6 months after moving here. Just because I am weird and interested in this kind of thing but didn't know about it at all...

The original "Body Farm" (started by William Bass) is the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility located a few miles from downtown off of Alcoa Highway in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I drive Alcoa highway pretty much any time I go out. I know exactly where that is. Unfortunately, Google's satellite image isn't very revealing, but still, crazy, right?

View Larger Map

Anyway, I would love to go visit there but it's closed to the public. Maybe it's time to start studying anthropology?

I guess this is a photo of the body farm in winter, when you can at least kind of make out some of the structure of the place.

Also, here is a set of much closer-up photos, but all you can see is the fence.

Hmm, where was I?

Well, I was talking about dead bodies & art. Unfortunately I don't think many of the bodies at the "body farm" are taking part in any artwork of any kind.

So. Anyway, one thing I stumbled across (when reading about the Ferrari thing above) was Honoré Fragonard, who was an anatomist in the late 1700s. (See? I didn't even wikipedia link it, because the wikipedia article isn't actually very good)
I guess some of his écorchés or "flayed figures" (though I think the literal translation of écorché is "scorched" - ok, i looked it up and the answer is "skinned" but I can see how "scorched" is similar. A neat trick with French words is if they start with "é" that "é" can sometimes be changed for an "s" to create a cognate. "étudier" for example, is the verb for "to study", "épine" is the word for "needle" -like spine, get it?-, "école" means "school" ... so if you are ever confused in French and can't look it up, try that trick. It doesn't always yield the answer, but it does sometimes and it can help. Another useful trick is that the circumflex (^) often goes over a vowel where the S afterward has been removed. "pâtes" is "pasta", "hôpital" is "hospital", "île" is "isle", "fête" is "festival" etc.)

Ahem.

Anyway. It makes sense that the word for "skinned" would be similar to "scorched", I don't know though, I often try to make connections when there really are none.

What's cool about this Fragonard guy is his stuff really did leave the realm of educational or scientific and has crossed far over into art. Amazingly, the museum that has his stuff doesn't have very many good photos of it on their website, but I found a photographer's website which has some very nice photos.

Warning: You may find the image below offensive.


Click here to see the full series.

My favorite piece by far is "Man with a Mandible," which I will link to after the description.
Just because the description is so... I don't know, exciting.

This tall écorché was inspired by Samson knocking the Philistines down, using a donkey jaw. The work carries extreme violence : his arm brandishes the threatening mandible, his lips are tense, his look is deviated, his injected penis is obscenely taut. Fragonard went as far as twisting his ears and lips, and deep-setting his nose to give him an aggressive grin.

Click here to see "Man with a Mandible".

I guess it's just part of that whole incredulity I have with death, because these bodies are so ... energetic, it's just almost impossible to believe that there's no life within.

And to think about the guy that put that together, an anatomist being inspired by the bible, it's just awesome. And I don't mean awesome as in "bill-and-ted" awesome, but as in awe-inspiring. I don't know.
I just think of this guy and maybe the life he was living and how it came to be that he chose to do that pose. He had to put bodies together somehow and maybe he was complaining to his mom or something, "I just don't know how to pose them," and then she says "Well, why don't you look in the bible for inspiration?" And he did, it's perfect. Just perfect! This nerdy guy and his mom gives him the idea for it!
OK, well I don't know if that really happened, but this is the kind of thing my imagination takes and runs wild with.

Also, see the movie "Anatomy" with Franka Potente (trailer here). I am linking to the German trailer because the English language trailer sucks a lot. Walmart used to sell this movie for $5.50 and it's definitely one of their better deals. Most of the DVDs in those huge bins suck, but this one is great - however, I don't think they still sell it there, I think I bought it about 5 years ago. Anyway, it's all the "plastination" stuff where all the water is sucked out of the body and replaced with plastic so it doesn't decay... like that "Bodies" exhibit that everyone in the world has seen but me. And I lived in New York while it was there, what is wrong with me?

I guess it's in Atlanta until January, that would be a reason to go see it.

Hmm.

Anyway, I don't really have much to say right now. Just saw some stuff that I thought was interesting. Am moving soon, which is going to be exciting. I just can't wait to get out of Maryville. It's a cute town and all, but all I ever do is drive to and from Knoxville all the time. Oy.

So that's it for now.

See you all later.

Labels: art, bodies, corpses, death, knoxville

However many steps I take forward, I always end up going backward.

On Thursday I spent the day with my mother and her new boyfriend Paul. I gave her a shawl that I knitted for her, which she loved. We went to therapy, which went well. We went to lunch, she had 2 glasses of wine and so did I, but it was OK. We looked at apartments, and she thought I deserved to live in a better place than any of those that we saw. She wanted me to be happy. That night we got caught in a crowd and I hugged her and told her how much I really love her, how I used to be embarrassed by her when I went out with her but that now I was so proud of her, I was proud to be her daughter, and I was so grateful that she cared about me.

And I meant everything I said. All of it. I still do.

She said she loved me too, and I knew she did.

But still, that night while I was driving home I stopped to get gas and also bought cigarettes. I burned my left arm and right hand 5 times. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't crying, I was a little drunk but no more than I am on other nights I go out, and other nights I don't end up wanting to harm myself. Or if I do, I don't do it.

But for some reason, on Thursday night I did hurt myself. I burned myself badly.

And that really scared me because I wasn't feeling depressed, I wasn't feeling angry at myself. I was amazed at how well things went that day. Has my urge to punish myself become unconscious? How can I fight it if it's gone underground and I can't even recognize it's there?

Also, Friday night we went out to dinner with my friends and all was going well until Mom mentioned that Gordon died in March. She and Gordon dated from 2001-2006, and he was one of the few people that took my side and helped mediate when things got rough with mom. In 2008 when I was living in Florida and working at Office Max he came and visited me often, and asked how my mom was doing and how I was doing... he was such a good man. He always told me he thought I should go to Johns Hopkins University.
I couldn't believe it.

I started crying and couldn't stop (despite the fact that we were at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, so fancy it wasn't even IN town), and then I got a text from Charles saying that Snowy had died as well. Snowy was our household pet for a long time, we got her probably in 1992 or 1993. She almost died, attacked by our dog Carmen (who had actually killed our previous kitten) but then Carmen got sick and died and so Snowy lived the rest of her life as a mean, traumatized pet. When I started dating Charles in 2005, he was really in love with Snowy despite the fact that she was as mean to him as she was to anyone else. As my dad's Alzheimer's progressed, Charles took responsibility for taking care of Snowy.




In August of 2005 when I moved out to go to college, Charles continued to go to my dad's house to feed, clean up after, and attempt to play with Snowy.

Even when Charles and I split up in spring of 2006, Charles still cared for Snowy. And my dad, too, they got along well. When Charles got an apartment that summer he got his own cat, Leo, (seen here with Hilary) but still as soon as my dad would let him, Charles adopted Snowy and until a couple weeks ago I guess they were all one big happy family. Charles said Snowy was very sick the last couple of weeks, probably from her kidneys, and he had to put her down yesterday.

Anyway, if she lived to be 16 or 17 I guess that's a good lifespan for a cat.

I feel bad devoting more of this entry to Snowy than to Gordon, but I don't know all that much about Gordon. A few things about Gordon that I do know for sure: He loved me, and he loved my mother. He was funny and honest, and he believed in me and wanted to help me. He did help me, me and my mother. There are several occasions I can think of where my mother and I would have killed each other if he hadn't been there to calm us down. And we probably wouldn't have ANY relationship today if it weren't for him.

No offense, but my mother has just about as many issues as I do so one must be a saint to deal with her, and Gordon certainly was. Unfortunately, prostate cancer got him, and fast.

Obituary for Gordon Brown Jr.

A thought just came into my head. "Why did Gordon have to die? He was such a good person, I wish I could have died instead of him, I have nothing to offer the world and I'm just miserable all the time anyway." Then I caught myself. "No, I do have a lot to offer, I have a great future ahead of me, I can and do make people happy. I am happy myself very often, though some people don't see it. I enjoy my life, and I'm not giving it up."

That's progress, right? That's definitely a good thing to be thinking.

Now, if I can think like that, why did I stab myself repeatedly with lit cigarettes on Thursday night, before I heard any of this bad news? I wasn't crying when I did it, I wasn't listening to Elliott Smith or anything sad, I was just driving, listening to Beck. and I just couldn't help myself.

I couldn't help myself.

But I have to help myself... If I don't, who will?

Labels: death, family, mental illness, therapy

"You can't trust anyone 'cause you're untrustable
How can you trust someone you know can't trust you?"

- Built to Spill "Untrustable Part 2 (About Someone Else)"

That's a line that's stuck with me for years. Well, saying that doesn't mean much. Years is such a relative term. 5 years ago if I said something in my life had been static "for years", that would have been a major accomplishment. I was 18, and people change a lot up to that point in their lives.

But actually, looking back at it now, 5 years later, has anything really stabilized? No, no it hasn't. In high school my grades were either very good or very bad, same thing in college. I almost dropped out of high school (and would have if my parents/superiors had let me) and I ended up dropping out of college. Twice. Though it's not like I was "so close" or anything, I only had (have?) 25 credits - 9 of which are "pass" credits.

I keep moving around -not just cities, but states- and don't get me started talking about relationships.

Well, maybe I'll sneak up around the side of that subject.
In kind of a circular motion - bringing us back to the main idea of the post: Trustworthiness.

Relationships are all about trust. Am I trustworthy? Do I want to be?
More and more lately I find myself trying to do myself harm - physically and emotionally. I make myself out to be a bad person, and I feel that I want to be a bad person, and that I want people to think that I am a bad person.

At the same time, there is a strange duality. I am very afraid of losing people's respect. Which is weird, because I don't actually respect myself.
In some ways I do, I guess, especially lately with this anger I've been having. It's a good thing in a way, because the reason I am blowing up at people is because I'm not going to take their bullshit the way I used to. I've realized that the beliefs I have are important enough for me to stand up for, which is a very good thing. In a way, I really like the fact that I have become so angry.

Sadly, I have taken things a bit too far and am becoming psychotic. I yell at people over stupid little things, and what REALLY bothers me is that I can't get my wording correct.

When I used to yell at people, my syntax and vocabulary was astonishing. Admirable, really.
Now, I'm just really confused. "Why can't you just leave you alone?" "You're always trying to shit from you!" "Can't you stop bother you? "You doesn't even !!!"

It's ridiculous. I guess maybe I'm more angry than I used to be - Angelus house pretty much brainwashed me out of being angry. It's weird, because looking back at the treatment, part of their therapy was that you do need to become angry. But for some reason whenever I was angry I was "wrong" - pretty much everything I did was wrong. I'll admit that I was no angel there (no pun intended), but my rule breaking was no worse than anyone else's. Maybe I'll never know, but I don't think A.'s death was my fault. And of course, everyone SAID it wasn't my fault, but none of them ever treated me the same way after it happened.

Back to the lyric. 2007 was when I really started lying a whole lot. It started with my relationship with A., which had to be a secret. When we came out and told the truth about that, the consequences we faced were terrible. I don't want to get into it too much, but we were both punished - severely. I'm kind of in the middle of the two year anniversary of when it all happened - because it spanned a few weeks.

Brownie-type cupcakes I decorated right after A. and I were banned from seeing eachother. Yes, I was a tad bitter.

What I learned from that ordeal was that telling the truth is worse than lying. I shouldn't have told Dave the truth, and I shouldn't have told A. the truth. Or what I thought was the truth. By that point I had already been brainwashed into thinking I was a terrible person, so I told A. that that's what I was. I told him I was unhappy and that I was a deviant, and that he could never help me, he could never make me better.

If you have issues with your sexuality, the worst possible thing you can do is to go to Angelus house. Dave used to be a Catholic priest, and he will pass judgement upon you and treat your problem as YOUR problem, you're making it up, you're pretending, you're bullshitting and that's what's wrong with YOU. It's all YOU, no, it's not because you were raised in a fucked up environment, or your parents taught you warped views on sexuality, it's not because you were raped or oversexualized as a child, no, nothing like that, it's because YOU want attention, you don't REALLY have a problem, it's just your pathetic way to try and get people to pay attention to you, and YOU'RE not going to waste MY time with your pitiful attempt to be "special" and "different".

Now, THAT'S bullshit. So, if I want to have my own beliefs, Dave, you are OK with me hating myself for them? Oh, that's how you would PREFER it? Original sin, right? I don't know enough about the catholic religion to get across the point of how biased he was.

"How can you trust someone you know can't trust you?"
Part of the brainwashing at Angelus house was that I was trained to believe that I was always wrong, thus I learned that I can't trust myself. They taught me to believe that I was untrustable, and because I was in such a vulnerable position, I believed them, and then grew to live up to it.
How can I trust someone I know can't trust me? What if that someone is myself? Playing silly with words here, but to me it makes sense.

That brings up another issue: If I know I'm crazy, does that make me less crazy? And what if I'm only aware of some of my insanity? Like, when I was yelling at people today, I knew I wasn't in my right mind, but I couldn't figure out that was the case. But another thing is, part of me sees my anger as being a good thing (re: standing up for myself) - I know I take it to inappropriate levels here and there, but at the same time I'm glad it's here.

Oh well. This is the issue of sanity.

Or insanity, whatever.

Also, I have to be back in NY soon, I have an appointment there on 2/23. So wish me luck on that. And if you're in NY and want to hang out or whatever, don't hold your breath, HAH! And if you do run into me, watch out, because I may still be psychotic. Luckily I haven't started to throw things yet. Let's hope that if that begins, my laptop is far, far away.

Also, when does a quote become a quotation?

Note: I am noticing that I've become more "rambling" (Sprawling?) and am having more trouble staying on topic. This is bad, because one of the only things I think I'm good at is writing, so if I lose that, what have I got?

Labels: angelus, anger, brainwashing, built to spill, death, fault, guilt, love, lyrics, mental illness, self-hatred, therapy