after a hiatus...

So I have been staring at the wall all morning, having called in sick from work for the second day in a row. I have called in sick because at 27 years old I have had perhaps the worst period in recent and not so recent memory. It really sucks.

I have been talking to my doctor and she is singularly useless, as she seems incapable or unwilling to make any kind of decision or diagnosis as to whether or not this could have anything to do with the other body issues that I have been having lately (Gender, body mod, etc.) So let’s just say that we are in a pissy mood this morning.

Ok now that I am done with that, I can get on to what I really came here to say which is this. I had something of a revelation the other day and I thought (actually Winter told me that I) should write it down before it disappears into the ether from whence it came.

I was wandering aimlessly through a Borders the other day, thinking about the shiny new paycheck that I had just gotten and wondering if there were any new books that I wanted to read. When all of the sudden I had the irresistible urge to go and look in the pagan/spirituality section to see if there was anything there that might be of some use. Now if anyone has been into the Pagan/Spirituality section of a Borders or Barnes and Noble, and they already own Raven's books, aren't interested in "Learning to unlock your ESP" or looking at another Silver Raven Wolf book about how to teach your teen to do bad meditation, then you will know why this should have been immediately suspect. But on I went.

When I got to the aforementioned section, I came upon a group of 30-something women, shuffling down the isle like a group of middle school girls in their first porn shop. One of them pointed to a book on Tarot and said that she had tried calling a telephone Psychic and that the experience had been “Deeply Meaningful” to her.

Now as someone who does Rune readings badly myself, and knows a fair number of people who I would say are excellent readers of both Tarot, Runes, and many other forms of divination, I can say that when I hear the word “Telephone Psychic” something in me just cringes and starts to froth at the mouth a little bit. I was all set to ignore them and laugh on the inside at the newbies, when all of the sudden, splat down comes the wet cow pie of a Teacher Hat. Sigh, no really you do have to tell them otherwise, no you don’t just get to be self satisfied snarky sprirtworker girl over in the corner. Grr.

But what to say? I don’t really Read enough to tell these women anything else with any kind of genuine authority, nor do they have any reason to listen to me. But the Teaching Hat will not be denied, so in I go.

Let me just say that I hate it when something else’s words start coming out of my mouth. It creeps me out soooooo much more than full possession. With a full horsing I am aware of what I am doing, I am generally consenting or at least I have some warning. But I Hate it (and yes I meant to capitalize that) when the cosmic whatever sticks its slimy little tentacle up my but and turns me into a glorified sock puppet.

So I say “Um excuse me I couldn’t help over hearing your conversation, but” as if I would ever say that if I had a choice “as someone who does readings, I think that it is much better to do them in person. A reading is like a conversation, one that you are having between your reader, you and a third invisible party that is putting in its two cents every now and then in a foreign language that you and your reader need to translate together to understand.”

So there is the jewel of wisdom that the slimy cow poo filled Teaching Hat has to offer about doing divinatory readings. Are they going to remember that conversation in a week? Do I care? Was it more important to say it, or was it just an exercise in futility? Who the fuck knows, but then isn’t that the motto of spiritworkers?

weird body issues...

So what do you do when thee gods are telling you to do something that just seems so petty that you think that it's got to just be the puppets in your head talking to your issues and saying "Hey we could really get somewhere with this." What do you do when you know that you don't look right, but that the thing that you need to be more at home in your body is petty and vain?

I have been struggling with this issue for almost a year or more now, and I am getting to the point with it where I am about to just scream. I need more tattoos and peircings. Anything that makes me look less "normal." It's really pathetic too, because even just painting my nails dark and wearing threatening jewelry helps a little bit.

I have tried ignoring it, just saying "This is stupid. I am just trying to justify getting more body mods, because I think they are pretty and cool. I don't need them." But it's steadily been getting harder and harder to ignore.

So really what do I say to some of my trans-gendered friends who have real body disphoria. How do I say with a straight face "I feel the same as you because I don't have enough tattoos."

Winter says that all of this stems from something that She wants. That for some reason She cares whether or not I have enough tattoos or body jewelry to make me stand out in a crowd. Now any speculation as to why She gives a flying fuck aside, I have to hold a job, I need health insurance, I need to be able to bring home my portion of the household bills every month, which right now I am barely doing let alone paying for all of this art and various other shit.

I don't know. Maybe it is all just in my head. Maybe I just want a reason so I can justify getting more, maybe I just want to have something else to complain about.

Ok I'm done whining now.

new photoshop doodle

So if the world didn't come to an end then...

I think that this video may be proof of the basic elasticity of reality. If this one fashion show didn't rip open the fabric of reality and cause the screaming hordes of hell to stream through the rift in a bloody hoarde, then perhaps we may not be done for just yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzj_te1xenY&eurl=

I added a new paragraph at the end to this...

Mermaid

The sea washes over her feet as the sun sets in a bloody fire over the horizon. The slashes of red and gold flow over the horizon in long streaks. She stares out blankly and lets the water flow up and over long thin her legs, letting the cold sea water carry the sand from beneath her and out to sea. She is dressed in graying ragged jeans that fall around her in threads and strips. Her sweater is green and baggy, hanging off her thin shoulders, the hem unraveling in places.
I stand at the back door of the beach house and watched as the tide comes in, slowly swallowing her up as the sun sets. As the water rises the scraps of her clothing float up around her like kelp, the water tugging and pulling at her arms. I know that soon the water will be high and she will be gone, leaving no trace of her long vigil on the beach below.
"Are you coming!?" Melissa calls, exasperation making her normally clear voice harsh. My wife never could see her, and goes about her evening as usual, preparing dinner as if a young woman doesn't die in our backyard every night.
I wait at the door, tense, waiting for the body to wash ashore, just like last night and the night before. I tell myself that tonight I will go out there and find her. I'll go out and save her. I'll go...
"Jerry! I've called you three times, didn't you hear me?" Her hair is limp and blond, and it seems to float up before the waves swallow her, leaving no trace.
"Jerry?" I turn and go into the kitchen, ready to wait another day to see her fair shining face and limp sagging clothes walking down the sand to the sea.
"Hello, are we all still here? Dinner's been ready for ten minutes already. It’s getting cold." Melissa is short and plump, with chestnut brown hair falling in fine waves and curl to her shoulders. We had been married for fifteen years now, living just us. Since I had retired 1 year ago from my practice in the city, we had lived here at this beach house just enjoying each others company. Having not seen her for the first fourteen years of our marriage, I had assumed that upon retiring we would like each other that much more. But I suppose that having a stranger in the house is better than having no-one at all.
"You're quiet tonight, did you do anything interesting today? Mary at the store says that we'll be getting that big shopping mall contract down the road. I can't wait to be able to get out a bit and do some shopping without having to drive for an hour each way. I don't know what's worse, seeing you moping around all day doing nothing or having to drive halfway across the county just to buy groceries."
I wonder who she is. Thoughts of her preoccupy me throughout my day. Melissa has gone to her book group, or was it her church group. Does she still go to church? I don't even pay attention anymore. I certainly don't go anywhere, I would have to leave the beach and the girl in the surf. I don't go out much, hoping that she will appear one day. Maybe she'll look over and see me watching her. Maybe that day will be the day that she steps back and walks toward the house, away from the surf and the water and doesn't disappear in the waves.
I've never called the cops. I don't know what I'd say. At first when I saw her I just thought she was some kid who like to go swimming at night, but I never saw her come back and its the same every night. The first time I saw her, I almost opened the screen door. Almost went out there to run her off or something equally home-ownerish. I don't know what I was going to say, maybe "Hey kid! This is private property!" or "Hey you, get out of there, it's not safe!" I never got farther than the screen door, never quite got it open.
Evening again and I am waiting for her. She appears, coming over the dunes from the south like yesterday and the day before. Today I am going to go out, today I am going to catch her and keep her from going into the sea. I am going out the door. I feel the sand under my feet, hot from the day's sun. It drags at my feet, running and falling over the dunes down to the water line. The salt grass smells pungent as I plunge headlong over the crest of the dune, and I see her. I stop, panting and gasping for air.
She comes down the dunes and I see her face for the first time. It is long and lean surrounded by her floating golden hair. Part of me pauses, perhaps for the first time and wonders why I have never seen her face before this. The sun reflects off of the gold of her hair and I forget, stumbling forward again. The dune grasses are sharp and they cut my hands and bare feet. Salt stings the wounds.
She doesn't look my way she just walks slowly as if her feet pain her, slowly towards the water line. We are only two dunes away now and I can see her more clearly. Water and salt crust the sweater and I can smell the rotten seaweed from here. The hem is ragged and I see a slimy sheen to it that doesn't look quite right. Her pants that I had thought were jeans are gray and wet looking, hugging her thighs and caressing her ankles like tendrils in the foam of the surf.
"Jerry?!!" A far away voice calling from behind me. I can't remember who it belongs to.
I walk slowly towards her topping the last dune, and she is now only a few yards from me. The sweater is made from woven kelp and it stinks of rotten fish. The pants are made of something that I can't name, but they writhe white and wet. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Sunlight shines off her golden hair as she turns towards me for the first time and smiles. Sharp white teeth are all I can see and I follow her into the surf as the tide comes in.

The body had washed ashore over the night, and dawn broke, shining down on the pale sagging flesh and ripped clothes. The waves lapped at the feet and hands, small crabs nibbling on the toes of the bare feet. There were cuts on the hands and feet with red ragged edges. The eyes were glazed, but the blue lips curved up in a small blissful smile. By the body sat a young girl. From a distance she appeared to be dressed in a ragged green sweater and faded ripped jeans, her hand occasionally reaching down to stroke the dead man's hair lovingly.

Spirit workers in the news

I had an interesting experience today, that I thought I might share.

I was reading an old article in the Concord Monitor while at work, and I will try to get a link to the article although it's old, so I might not be able to. It was about a man who is a Catholic Priest, who moonlights as a bag pipe player on the side to make some extra money. He chose this profession after some time, and what he describes as "running from his purpose of being a minister" or some such (doesn't that sound familiar). When faced with the monetarily thankless job of being a priest, he asked God for some help. God said "Go buy a set of bagpipes."

Now I have gotten really cryptic shit like that, so I can understand his confusion at first. Really a bagpipe player doesn't seem to be a more lucrative career than the head of a construction company but hey, he is God right? Well I guess its all working out all right for this guy now, as he's booking gigs a year in advance.

So my point is this, why when we practiced spirit workers do crazy shit because our gods tell us to don't we get articles about us written in the local paper?

This is closer to the orriginal of that photo, but still not raw.

This is a picture that I took of a weird wooden angel sculpture that I took and then fucked with.

experienceingtechnicaldifficulties.....

So we seem to be experiencing technical difficulties that don't have anything to do with the large quantities of rum that we consumed earlier. Honest. I have a post ready and waiting as soon as I can figure out why the picture won't upload...

strange anatomyical study

I did this while I was taking a figure drawing class. I had a lot of fun figuring out how the joints would work and how they would attach to the body,

ok now what the fuck is that?

I found these on the Martha Stewart website. I think that she is now advocating a modest proposal...

after a long break a token post

I am currently watching my 5 month old puppy run wildly in circles around my apartment. The truly beautiful thing about this is that she can amuse herself with this for nearly an hour before collapsing and a heap of thoroughly tired puppy.

Would that we could be so easily amused...

And now on a lighter note

since the last one was so whiney, I thought that I might put up the begginings of a beautiful corpse excersize that I have been playing with Winter.


I am not sure how long I sat and stared out the window at the wind and snow. It’s not like you could see anything else out there. The window cast a rectangle of light into the swirling chaos of the blizzard. It had blasted for the past 10 hours, wind buffeting the house and snow piling up against the side of the house. I was alone in the house, just me and the wind. It was a miracle that the roof hadn’t been ripped off or a window hadn’t shattered yet by the force of the gale.
In the living room the wind was the loudest. All of the old Victorian windows, single paned and wavy, rattled with the storm. The winds circled the house, whistling through the columns of the large wrap around porch. Occasionally I could hear the swing crash into the side of the house or rattle its chains like and old ghost.
The corpse swung lazily from the balcony, in and out of the light from the window tracing small circles in the air. The blood dripped down in little circles on the porch floor before freezing there. Snow and wind swirled and howled around it. Soon it would be nothing more than one more shape out there in the gathering gloom of evening.



( \/)
(0.o) oh and don't forget
(> <) Bunny says you die now.

Peter Pan and other thoughts

So in the interest in being a more open and communicative person, and in the need to whine just a little bit to no one in particular, I give you this. I hate my job. I REALLY hate my job. I know that you are supposed to hate you job and it’s all just supposed to be waiting for retirement, but really that just sounds soul-sucking to me. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t paying me diddly on a cosmic scale (11,000 a year, before taxes). But really I could and have lived with that before, if only the people weren’t such assholes. I don’t mean anyone in particular, but really when you are doing something that you really don’t want to be doing, everyone who you interact with in that setting immediately becomes the biggest asshole in the whole world, and it doesn’t matter that they are relatively nice about it. Or that they love their job and I’m sure are quite good at it.

Anyway, that’s not really what I want to be talking about. Everyone hates their job just a little. If nothing else every time that you would really rather be doing something else, but THEY (whoever they may be) says “No, because I’m not paying you to check your email, and loaf about outside!” At that moment, no matter how much you loved it the second before, you hate it right then.

At what point did I grow up and stop getting to be a kid? At what point did I stop saying “No I want to do this and I will because I can.”? When did the bills suddenly get so big that I said, no I won’t get that new piece of body art, the rent is due. Was I ever that person? Maybe that’s what I am really pissed about. Maybe I never was. I have said that I am a spooky spirit worker in my bio. Well if anyone happens to read this who I don’t know personally, I swore service to my Lady (Goddess, Bitch, Drill-Sergeant) in my first year of college. After that it was all training and teaching, and going to class. Trying to graduate from college while spending every other minute that wasn’t spent writing papers learning and creating a whole new discipline of magic. Now I wasn’t alone in any of that, I did it with a partner, but still. When did I get to be a college student?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of a visit from my Lady’s Warrior face. Let’s just say that she can be nice, but wasn’t really choosing to be and my side still hurts from a short demonstration of just how out of shape and slow I have become. Much of the rest of the visit consisted of her sugesting that I should get off my ass and do all of the things that I am not adequately doing right now. Is she right? Probably.

But really how much time do I have in a day? 24 hours? I do need to sleep at some point, so that’s about 7 hours there if I want to be a reasonable person when I wake up. Now I have 17 hours. Well if that’s a week day then anywhere from 8 to 10 hours will be spent at work, so that leaves lets say 9 hours. 1 hour spent in transit. That leaves 8 hours to the rest of the day. 8 times 5 is 40 hours in a week. Now that seems like a lot, but really what are the expectations on that time. Keeping the house clean, eating and the associated chores, doing my best to find a better job than the one I have now. Working as best I can for our business once I get home. Taking care of our various animals, one of which takes up a great deal of time and energy as she is a 4 month old puppy. So all of that leaves about 4 hours from the time I get home to when I need to go to bed if I am going to get that 7 hours of sleep that I mentioned before. 4 hours. 4 hours to do anything that might strike my fancy or I could just spend all of that time doing my real job. Being the Clan Speaker of Tashlin. Directing the troops so to speak. Doing any of the ten different tasks that she so gently chose to remind me of last night, almost all of which seem to take up large portions of a fast shrinking paycheck that really in the "real world" should be going to paying off the various bills that we keep getting calls from collection agencies about.

So that gets me back to my earlier question, when do I get to be a kid? I am now 26 years old and fast approaching 27. Do I get a time to be a college kid and just have fun? Do I get to just fuck up and say “oops”? No. Did I ever? Sometimes I don’t think so. So when I say that I hate my job, do I know which one I am talking about? Not really. Do I love my Lady? Most of the time, ok almost all of the time. Do I like her? Most of the time, but not much right now. I just want to run for the hills, yelling “Ha ha ha you won’t catch me and make me a man!”

as per request

the undoctored version of these two images.

blah

These are a different take on the classic triple moon design. It was just a quick sketch, but I was trying in vain to make the triple moon thing not look like a biohazard sign

Season's knot

so this is meant to be a lower back peice that i will get eventually. Its all about cycles and stuff, so I probablywon't be getting it too soon. Sigh.

heavy metal chick

So really I am getting very sick of the foibles of blogger, but I won't bitch about it too much. It is free and all. So this is really just a doodle that I did during a boring part of a conference that I was attending. Winter pointed out that it would make a good tattoo.

Curt Cobain and Courtney Love Married Us

So yesterday Winter sent me a link to a news site that said that Curt Cobain had now surpassed Elvis in sales and revenue after death. This is the link to the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/24/people.cobain.top.reut/index.html

So tonight during dinner we were talking about this article and Summer said that soon you would be able to get married in Vegas by a Cobain impersonator. Now really my brain thinks about odd things all on it's own and I take no responsibility for this, but the first thing that popped into my head was that just Cobain as a priest of Jesus etc. just wasn't right.

Despite the fact that Courtney Love is still alive I pictured a pair of officiators in a pagan ceremony with Love playing the part of the Lady all in greens and blues and old needles and candy wrappers instead of flowers. Standing beside her would be Cobain as the sacrificed King, John Barleycorn etc. You could even go so far as to have barley or wehat sticking out of the hole in his head. This would of course be the perfect pair to marry one of us in Vegas.

grr

This is a design for a tattoo that a woman I used to know asked me to design for her. The major criterion for it was that she loved western style dragons, but had never seen a picture of one that she didn't think looked stupid. So with that in mind I designed this for her. It was designed to go on the back with the wings of the dragon across the shoulder blades either just the one or two opposing eachother with something between them. I don't know if she ever had it done as we lost touch not that long after I gave it to her.