Tales from the Id

and way down in the depths...

I know that Ms. Sandy wreaked havoc up and down the New York/New Jersey coast, and that is terrible, but where I am she hit just hard enough to get me a mini-vacation, but not hard enough to knock my power out, and so this is what I did.... This was the first painting I did with alcohol inks on yupo paper, and it had to be fixed. So I fixed it. Yay. Then I painting some lightswitches... because when you can't paint the walls you might as well colorize the switches. Sunflower for Val :) Trees Paris Starry Night! Then I did some other little pictures... Windy City and Bilbo was sleeping in his hammock   and a little something for Halloween   and tomorrow, at 5:30am, in seven and a half hours.... there will be no more time to paint again :(

Catholic Insight magazine's October's issue features St. Andre Bessette, a Canadian priest who was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on February 9, 2010.  St. Andre had great devotion to St. Joseph, and through Andre's intercession to St. Joseph many people experienced miraculous healing during Andre's life. You can visit their website: http://www.catholicinsight.com/

I have not been here in a while because, the sad truth is, I lost my sketchbook.  No idea where it went.  No, not quite... it could possibly be in NJ.  But in the meantime I have been building a wine and liquor cabinet.  Which is going to be EPIC when it is finished (if you don't look too closely at the finer details of its construction).  And also, so far this summer, I have read three whole books and finished two I was working on... which now that I think of it is decidedly too few as we are already at the end of the middle of June.  Oh, and also in the absence of my sketchbook, I have done a tad bit of painting.  Here is one: a lovely sunset. Mostly though, I have been working my summer away -- 20 hours at my internship and 20 at work.  Factor in for.EV.er. for my commute and that has been most of my life since school got out.  That and apartment hunting.  Looking for a house is the tenth level of the Inferno.  I have gotten...

My Theology of the Body Paper as it COULD HAVE BEEN!--because pictures make the world a better place--but wasn't.....         In the Beginning (because where else would you start?)  God created Man in His own Image....and damn was he good! This was the Original Solitude of man.  The first man ’s singularity before God in creation did not simply point to a lack of other human beings, but to his uniqueness and personal calling to relationship with God.  Each person exists in this solitude before God and is called, like the first man alone in creation, to unity with God. However, since God is a communion of Divine Persons, man was an incomplete expression of the image of God all by himself.  So God put the man to sleep and brought Eve out of Adam. With the creation of Eve, Adam’s particular expression of humanity -- that of masculinity -- was awakened and confirmed by Eve’s difference from him -- that is, her femininity.  Th...

Secretly? Secretely? Secretley? No, it's definitely secretly, but no matter how I spell it today it looks wrong.  Tangent - spelling is of no consequence.  What is of literal and metaphorical great consequence is that my house is secretly huge . This is a fairly new discovery for me.  For the last year and a half I have been mystified about some happenings here in VA, but just a few short weeks ago the fog around my perception vanished and I became cognizant of the fact that not only is my house secretly huge, but that I am the only one who cannot see its massiveness.  In short, the truth dawned upon me one day just after I had finished completely and totally cleaning the kitchen -- there seemed to be not a crumb in sight or a spoon out of place -- and then who should arrive nearly magically and entirely of its own volition but a plate!  And did this plate walk right over to the sink and jump in as I thought it should?  No.  It planted itself on th...

Applying for externships is fricken stressful.  Not like, "oh my gosh I have so much stuff to do" stress, or "oh my gosh I'm not prepared for this" stress, or "oh my gosh my life aaaaaaaah!" stress... it's paperwork stress.  Yes. The. Worst. Kind. of stress. This kind of paperwork stress makes Anna go insane, and it depresses my central nervous system, making me sleep. Now when this happens, we are not terribly productive.  Well... Anna is a little productive because she is actually doing something, even if it looks like she's creating chaos. But I definitely accomplish zip. And then Anna's craziness wakes me up.  Like this: And so I calm her down, she wakes me up, and our combined effort is triumphant.  In fact, if you stuck us in a blender... and then poured out one, sane person, we would be unstoppable.  Probably take over the world. AND we wouldn't even have to change our name. But we might be a little split when it ...

So last year just seconds before the accident Puck dove down deep into the Id and did not show his face for months. Actually, did not show his face until just the other week.  He has always preferred to make his presence known when my frontal lobe is somehow compromised, and the head-cold I was suffering from, coupled with lots of cough medicine, provided him a lovely opportunity to re-visit the consciousness. And revisit he did.  (Now I can't get rid of him.) This is the story of his re-emergence. So I was sick. And sleeping. It was between 6 and 630 AM: My alarm was going to go off any minute, and Puck decided to check the bathroom for me to see if it was free or occupied... Sneaking out of my room Yup. Gina's in there already. Shower's going! So then he came back and told me about it.... Now, when I woke up to my alarm clock, my first groggy thought of the morning was, "Hey, I checked already, Gina's in there... I'm going back to sleep." ...

This drawing is in honour of the longest planned, most epic practical joke in all of history:   And it's true...that is not my best circle....

Anxiety is one of those things that everyone experiences to greater or lesser degrees, and it happens to be a modern word for an often unnecessary and rather dated fight or flight response.  It is not as useless a leftover from earlier days as wisdom teeth or the appendix, but for the most part when you experience anxiety actually fleeing or literally engaging in battle are not options, and you sit there in whatever anxiety provoking situation, feeling your heart race and maybe your hands shake or sweat, unconsciously probing for exits and sizing up everything not nailed to the floor as possible weapons, wondering frantically what you've just studied for that test, whether or not that person texting is going to merge right into you, how soon it will be before the plane crashes or lands, if that dentist is actually going to sadistically torture you to death or let you leave with your life and all your teeth, when will this meeting with the boss be over, do his/her parents even lik...