Stuck in my cabana…

Livin’ on bananas and blow.

Psst…hey

In all fairness, the last time I read that line, I didn’t get a drawing. The picture that followed was one of this lovely young woman in North Dakota I was talking with online sucking a rather handsome cock. What a wonderful picture. Got me hard immediately. Sadly, I was at work and wasn’t able to take care of it. Even worse than that, it was one of those images on IG that you can only look at once. Damn shame.

If you’re out there Jean and you read this, dm me.

Everyone feel gross? Good. Me too. Don’t fret though, it will definitely happen again—both feeling gross and me giving shout outs to lovely women who’ve made me smile, and possibly come.

Still working on this ‘no goal’ thing for next year. It’s tough, because there are things I want to list, but I also don’t want to continue a problem.

That said, ‘no goal’ should really be changed to ‘one-goal,’ because I want to clear as much of my debt as possible. I want to get as much of that weight off as possible before I hit 40. Outside of that though, living in the presence and shit and just working to heal some of these mental health issues before that frightful age.

Dicks for listening!

Fish that can’t get laid…

Fincels I call them…

I’d mentioned posting art, and I know I should, but I don’t really want to. I don’t know why, I’m just tired of posting my art, tired of even trying. The shit part is, I don’t even know if I should call it “trying.” I’d post art, I’d talk about things I was working on, but I hardly finished anything. I’d mention having things for sale or opening some online story, but I’d never talk about selling shit or commissions in the real world. I’d produce art, but never really sought to do anything with it. All of that was always just a dream, one that I’d act out day after day, night after night, in the car, in the mirror, in my head, over and over. That’s all so much of life has been. Everything was always just a daydream for me. Almost none of it’s been reality.

I’m just bitching and discouraged.

Obviously.

That said, I am getting tired of posting my art, of trying to be a known artist. It’s not that I’ve lost the zest of creating it, I’m just tired of dreaming about it, of thinking it’s going to be anything other than my own white whale. Maybe I’ll learn how to live a bit more in the present and just enjoy the making of the art, rather than thinking about how it will make me money or make me famous.

Will it help? Fuck if I know. It feels like quitting, but maybe it’s what I need.

Dicks for listening!

Missed 2 days…

Maybe I’ll post twice today. It is early after all.

Went to the company Christmas party today. I went because my manager worked to get the overnight staff an actual Christmas party since we will inevitably be working when the actual company party occurs and it seemed rude to not at least give it a shot. Still, while I was expecting it to be nothing major, I should have done a bit more mental prep before going. I only made it about 30 minutes at the restaurant before abruptly having to leave due to a rising panic attack/ anxiety strike. Thankfully, I made it to the car before I started crying. Even then, the real waterworks didn’t hit until I was already on the interstate, and let me tell you, tears and an astigmatism are not super great for driving.

In any case, a panic attack is definitely not my favorite way to start the day. It isn’t just the adrenaline, the crying, the feeling of defeat, it’s the onslaught of negative feelings that run along with it. It’s the self-loathing that inevitably follows. Part of the issue, perhaps all of it, is that I don’t do well in social situations these days. At something like a party or gathering, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what mask to wear, what role to take. Without that, all I can do is be me, and I grew up to hate that person. Somehow I learned that that person was no good, that he was flawed and broken and not worth anyone’s time. I learned that and never unlearned it.

Looking back, it created so many problems for me and still continues to. I don’t keep close friendships, I haven’t dated in almost a decade and, even when I did, it never followed the usual path. Like I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone I was interested in, asked them out on a date, had them say yes, and then go on said date. As far as I can remember, that has never happened. Generally I’d meet someone, I’d feel my heart flutter, and then that’d be where it’d stop. When I was younger, I’d do the whole, nice guy, friend shit and operate under the delusion that one day I’d be able to earn their affections. I’d never even ask them out. I’d just automatically assume that I was never going to be enough, that I had to earn the right to be considered worthwhile. Problematic view to say the least and definitely did me no favors.

Further, it seemed the only people I did date were situational and started out because either we were both drinking and hooked up, or because they made the first move. With the drunk hook-ups, I’d ghost them because, well, clearly they didn’t think too highly of themselves if I was the person they took home/ went home with so why bother having the courage to be honest and say I wasn’t interested to their face? (I’m a winner for sure right?) With the people who asked me out, well, it didn’t take long for them to realize that what they found interesting in me wasn’t me, but the mask I was wearing when they met me.

These days it’s almost the same only without the entitlement. I don’t believe that I can earn it. I still don’t believe that I’m worth any of it, but at least I’m not expecting a reward for being kind.

Also I’m not drunkenly hooking up with people I have no real interest in anymore. So there’s that.

Still, I do get those flutters and it still hurts to not be able to believe in them. Sometimes it’s helpful of course. Sometimes I get them and the person is in some manner of committed relationship and that at least makes things a little easier. The difficulty is in comparing myself to their partner. Doing that I’m immediately back into that mindset of earning love.

Can I make this make sense?

I start looking at their partner and at them. I start thinking how, if I want to be with someone like whoever it is my heart went all a-flutter for, I’ve got to be like their partner. I’ve got to be as successful as them, I’ve got to have their looks, their abilities. I’ve got to have their money their prospective futures.

I still fall back into that same horrible mindset. When a person is single, I’m not good enough for them, and when they’re taken, of course they are, because they deserve someone as amazing as their partner and, as such, I would never have been good enough for them in the first place.

I’m rambling, but the point is that deep down I have a deep disdain for who I am as a person. I want to love myself, but even when I’m feeling okay, some part of me feels it knows that I’m not worth anyone’s time. All that really matters is that I’m wearing the right mask for them and playing the right role.

Ugh, what a fucking downer. I’d remind any of you that read all this that I’m almost 40, but I’m afraid that that won’t be funny so much as it’ll be fucking sad. It’s even more sad too when you consider that I still don’t know how to be myself in front of my family or friends even. I can’t even remember the last time I reached out to someone for help when I was crashing and all I wanted to do was die. It’s not even a thing I consider.

I’ll shoot for something happier later. Maybe something positive like some picture updates.

Dicks for listening!

A Haunting in Connecticut II…

Why does this shit take place in Georgia?

In any case, almost didn’t post 2 days in a row. Thank goodness I remembered. I know how hurt y’all’d be if I had.

Been trying to figure out budgeting for next year and I’m reminded just how much I despise it. For me at least, it isn’t so much about the numbers as much as it is thinking about the future. I still struggle thinking about it. I get discouraged and then want to just quit life. It’s so easy to slip into thoughts of suicide when I think about the future that it feels better to just avoid it.

I don’t want to do that though. I want to actually want to live. I want to think about still being alive and not fill with despair.

I’m tired and a little high, but I want to return to the budget next post. I’m thinking that perhaps I may have to try and shoot for half the debt. All of it, while a wonderful dream, may be a bit out of the realms of reality.

Dicks for listening.

Why don't you go where fashion sits…

Squirt it on my tits.

I have had that song, and my subsequent version of it, stuck in my head all damn day.

In any case, I'm still trying to figure out this no goals goal (lol) and the more I think about it, the more it seems like what I'm supposed to do. The last therapist I saw was, not my favorite. I don't much care for a work-book approach to therapy. I get that work on the self must be done and that work might require some direction, but when the shit feels like school, I put on my good student mask and focus less on healing and more on trying to get an A.

Just, not my favorite. As they say though, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The old therapist was highly critical of my to do lists, my lists of goals and the like, and at the time I just sort of ignored that. Now though, it's become more clear why she didn't care for them. These lists, and the sense of accomplishment I sought from them, served more to reinforce the idea that my personhood had to be earned rather than help me to feel better. Don't get me wrong, they could make me feel good, but as I've already mentioned, those goals were, in large part, at the outskirts of possibility. Somewhere along the line I wasn't simply trying to get shit done, but to buy a new me, to earn the right to be proud of who I saw in the mirror. If I did these impossible tasks, I would no longer have to pretend I was someone valuable, I would finally, actually be valuable.

I need to break this way of thinking and I think getting out from behind the protection of my precious lists is going to be a major step I need to take.

Dicks for listening!

I know what you want to know…

And yes, I will tell you about what I’m currently working on.

Funny enough, I’m really not the best at doing this in public, or rather, face to face. Someone could ask me what I’m working on, and what they’re going to get is a “Oh, this and that,” or like, “Eh, I just like to scribble,” or, “Nothing major.”

In writing though, I can spill a bit.

In terms of pieces for others, I’ve got 3 people portraits and one pet.

I’m making progress on M.T.C., a porn parody featuring Marjorie Taylor Cream. It’s the first comic project I’ve attempted in a little while and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made so far. The pencils are almost done on this 30-ish page story and I’m trudging along.

Kunte, a collection of strange vaginas who share names with some well-known cunts, is also progressing. I’ve got all the initial inks done and am currently polishing those inks. From there it’s on to colors, layout, and then digital publication.

I’ve got 3 short prose stories to get edited/ finished for another short story collection.

Speaking of collections, I’m looking to include M.T.C. in a short comic collection to be part of an anthology.

Ephemerol is still in progress, with issue 2 images getting their polished inks and issue 3 having just about all of the initial inks complete.

On top of these: random images. I don’t like to cut the ideas off all the time and end up laying out several drawings at once. These get sketched and eventually completed.

So yeah, to answer your question, that’s what I’m working on. Next step is to get into the habit of getting progress shots uploaded regularly to help document the journey. Also, if you’re going to take the time to even glance at my ramblings, the least I can do is to include some images and make it a little less boring. I suppose I could write better or just go all in on either the optimism or the pessimism or some other such alteration, I’d rather just take a little stroll along the mirror’s edge.

Duhn, duhn, duhhhhhn.

Dicks for listening!

Goal-less living

Is it possible? I’m not quite certain it is, but some days I wish it was.

I’m debating trying to live as goal free as possible for a year. I can’t decide if it’s something that might be a positive experience for me or if it’s going to set me back. On the one hand, it sounds so stress-free, so peaceful. Year after year I’ve set these immensely difficult, if not outright impossible, goals and, while I don’t necessarily “feel” bad about not reaching them, I can’t help but to think it’s not much benefit to constantly have these failures. I mean, in some capacity I’m going to hold myself accountable to them right?

Now look, I already know what you’re thinking: how are you almost 40 and like this? This is an inappropriate question. Do better.

What you’re really thinking is: why not set more realistic/ simple goals?

The answer: Because them shit’s weak son.

If my goals are not outlandishly set, they are, in basic dream currency, worthless. What I want is invaluable, invaluable because it is impossible. I want to want to be me. I want to look in the mirror and be proud of who I see. I want to have a good relationship with my father, to have grown up with a biological Dad who isn’t obsessed with being what he thought was some manner of ideal masculinity and a step-dad who is obsessed with this set of social standards and graces which must rigidly be followed.

I want to have made better decisions, to have made decisions at all. I want to have asked the girls out I wanted to ask out, I want to have been the one to dump all the exes who dumped me. On that note, I’d want to also have not been a piece of shit towards the better dating choices I’d made. I wish I hadn’t been so shallow and so obsessed with protecting some image in my head of who I was supposed to be that I couldn’t recognize the best start to something I’d had in a long, long time.

If you ever want to try again Suzy, my number’s the same.

(Ugh, I’m cringing even now as I read that. I know it isn’t right for it to go in here, but I’m trying to open myself up, to allow the void an unfettered access to my brain via my fingertips. I also know that a combination of weed and memory has got me growing hard beneath my laptop as I type. The way I see it, I want to make a difference, to maybe help people through tough times the way others helped me. If that difference is more as a warning than a warm comfort, well, so be it.)

I want to have done the right things for my career, to have cared about actually making it a career rather than simply dreaming it was a reality. I want to have taken more work from people.

What I want exists in the past. What I want is impossible.

And impossible dreams are purchased with impossible goals.

Maybe the best goal then is to not have any, or at least as few as possible. Getting my debt cleared sounds like a solid goal. Just one, one to put my efforts towards. Outside of that, no goals. I’ll make it a year of making my brain and heart happy, trying to live life rather than earn it.

Also, I know this is supposed to be my art page. I’ll get back to getting art up on here. Next go round I’ll get into what I’ve been working on. I may have gone over it before, but, well, I don’t feel like reading old entries. I’ve few things encourage honesty quite like the combination of believing that no one is paying attention to what you’re saying and that of those that are, fewer will remember what you said. I know that everything on the internet is forever, but I doubt anyone’s really concerned with what’s coming out of me so…*shrugs

Thank you all for listening and try not to remember anything.

Yesterday was…dramatic…

Yeah, I know. Yesterday’s post was certainly dramatic, but what can I say? I’m just a dramatic guy like that. In any case, the drama is most likely far from over. December and January tend to be 2 of my worst months. Between Christmas and my birthday I just find it harder to maintain solid ground—mentally speaking.

Did get me thinking though.

I’d already started trying to set out my goals for next year and, well, they were a lot like they’ve been for a number of years. They all focus on overly-ambitious career/art goals. The idea, at the heart of it all, was buying my good-feelings with accomplishments. They weren’t wrong by any means, or even bad, they just weren’t right for me. I need to focus on my mental health, on acceptance, and on living in the present.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

The cringe is real, too real. The fact that I read the last 2 lines in Chris Pratt’s voice concerns me.

That said, it’s worth noting I may completely change this when I wake up. I may try, fail, and then delete everything that confirms this failure and pretend it never happened.

Or maybe I’ll succeed…

Anybody else tired of being alive?

I know I am.

I could continue, but it would read far more as whiny than wonderous. Let’s give it a shot anyway.

              I was, am, tired of being alive. Was it the mental illness that brought me here? Somewhat I’m sure. There’s a certain fatigue destined to set in when one seems unable to avoid the same conflicts day in and day out. Medications are lovely, and I’m sure therapy works for some—though it never seemed to do much good for me. Options exist to aid in what seems to be a terminal, mental ennui, but it remains just that: ennui. The weight of the past, real or imagined, is always there, adding an unneeded weight to my every day. The problem is the lack of an actual light. Sunshine itself, bright and pure and nourishing, doesn’t permeate the heavy clouds in any sort of meaningful way. Imagine a flat field. You’re looking across it and there, on the horizon, you see that nice silhouette of black trees drawing a steady ventral rhythm across it. Beep. Beep. Beep. You can see this, but above it, it’s just gray. Light exists sure—after all that’s how you see everything—but it isn’t direct or bright. It’s just this diffused haze that shows everything, but defines nothing. Maybe a shadow shows up every now and again, but for the most part it’s nothing but bland, washed out color and a steady rainfall. None of this is necessarily bleak, mind you, it’s just so fucking boring.

              And I’m tired of it.

              Is it worth thinking about times when the world looked different? No. You can think about times you’ve been warm and dry all you want, but when you’re standing in the rain, it doesn’t amount to shit now does it?

Today was a good day

I didn’t even have to use my AK…

Growing up, I was generally made to attend a Methodist church with occasional trips to ye olde Baptist house for certain family members. While the Baptists could be more than a little Old Testament with some shit, both seemed to operate under the idea, belief, promise even, that all a person needed to do was to accept Jesus as their lord and savior and to truly love him, and they would be allowed into heaven. Here’s the thing: the family believed that also thought that socialism was inherently evil.

Why does this confuse me?

Well, the protestant belief, for those that don’t know, is that one cannot work or buy their way into heaven. Do you see where I’m going here? If love and acceptance of and belief in Jesus is the only way to get into heaven, what about people who dedicate their lives to the love, worship, and gospel of Jesus? What about people who, alongside the aforementioned devotion, also dedicate their lives to the path of Jesus, to charity work and aid? Do people who simply love Jesus reap the same reward as those who dedicate their lives to him?

Do these mother fuckers think they’re going to the same heaven as Mother Theresa? If no, fair enough. Reap what you sow and all that jazz. If they do though, that is some socialist-ass shit right there.

Hope you enjoyed some layout sketches…

Definitely not doing well with this…

Here I was thinking I was going to do spectacularly her and yet, look at me doing all not well it. Just look at me go.

In spite of my lack of posting, I have been working and am slowly, but surely, getting work done. You’d know this if I’d actually followed through on those individual project notes, but I haven’t, so there’s that. Still, one of my goals this month is to update this blog 3 days a week and get into the habit of keeping it current. With Lent coming to an end in less than a week, I’m still not totally certain that I’d like to go to social media, but I do at least want to keep this place as current as I can. It seems like something I should do.

If I’m being honest, in my mind, it’s a responsibility to keep some sort of a record of my work. While I had a number of notions about it when I was younger, these days, I’m not entirely sure why I spend my time creating. I find it fun, sure, but I feel that there must be something deeper to it. I used to believe that I would make gobs of money from it and become world famous—all of that good ole dreamer shit. These days I don’t much think about earning money from it though the idea of being famous never quite went away. I’ll still take the time to give a speech or two to the bathroom when the mood strikes, but in general, the hopes that once fueled me are gone. All that exists is the joy, but when the depression hits, I need something more than that. I need a reason to live.

Lately I’ve been trying to tell myself that that reason I create exists even if I can’t immediately see it. It’s the closest I’ve come to putting my faith in something larger than myself in quite some time. I concede that it’s more of a delusion than anything else, but it is what it is.

That got depressing. Let’s have some happier shit.

I’m back to getting some writing done and am hoping to have the initial rough copy of the next short story collection here in the next couple of months. From there, I’d like to complete a first run of edits before letting it rest for a bit. I’m feeling ambitious and hoping to have it published by early next year.

I’ve completed the roughest of layouts for my porn comic and have been working on the next round of layouts . My goal is to have those done by the end of the month. From there I’ll let it rest for 6 weeks before starting in on the actual artwork for the book. I’ve made some progress on some other works as well and finally uploaded some new photos. Full set is over in Corporeal Tethers.

Thanks for stopping by and having a read a look. Until next time!

Lent’n again…

I am, for all intents and purposes, not a particularly religious person. Atheist seems a fitting term, though I’m not particularly concerned with proving my viewpoint. That being said, I am quite fond of the Christian practice of Lent. Though I would participate as a kid, being that I did go to church every Sunday, I fell out of the practice as an adult. Once I started to work towards sobriety, however, I found it again. There’s something empowering about denying one’s self things that we enjoy, doing without to remind ourselves that not only can we live without, but how wonderful it is to have whatever it is we chose to do without. I was consistent with it for a number or years, though fell back out of practice when covid hit. Now, I’m back to trying it again.

This year I’m shooting for a total of 7 goals, though I’ve certainly had varying experience with them already. No soda, no eating out, no social media (my cheat one), no fried food (accidently failed this day one), no masturbation (of course I failed this already, I fail it every year) encompass what I’m giving up. In addition to giving things up, I want to count calories for at least 30 of the 40 days and to write a minimum of 500 words everyday. We’ll see how it goes. The ones I fail I just pick back up and try again, doing my best to at least get a better streak going on the next attempt.

I like the challenge that these tasks bring because it does seem to give me a bit of positivity towards other challenges in life that I didn’t necessarily want to deal with at a given time. Case in point: I’m going to have to move soon. To be fair, it was always a possibility that I’d have to, given I’d only signed an 11 month lease, but I’m rather fond of my little apartment and was hoping to stay. That hope faded, however, when I received my renewal offer and saw that if I signed for another year, my rent was going to more than double. Thanks but no thanks. I can only assume that the property is wanting to renovate and would thusly rather see me go than hold off making some changes that would allow them to charge more. Oh well. What are you gonna do?

I’ve got a few changes I’d like to implement here soon, the biggest being a better WIP system. Instead of always updating them to this blog, I’ll keep a separate section where each piece is a post and every time I make some progress, I’ll upload it to the corresponding post. Doing this should create a nice little timeline of work on each piece. I’ll include works from Ephemerol, Kunte, and my stand-alone pieces, though I haven’t decided if I want to include written works yet or anything story based. I’ve been writing the script for a one-shot comic I’m getting excited about and have been trying to finish up the next book, but I’m not sure how worthwhile adding those to the WIP list might be. The only tricky part of this system is what to name the posts. I hate naming pieces, but I’m sure I can find a way around this.

Goodbye Social Media, Hello Blog…

As the title suggests, I’ve decided to step away from social media. The doom-scrolling, the lack of engagement on my shit…honestly it’s not doing much for my mental health. I consistently found myself feeling worse and terrible about myself after being on there and I just don’t really want that in my life anymore. Further, my skin’s been getting a little tight these days and it’s not just from the weight gain either. I need to do some changing and growing and I’m just not going to do that without leaving behind some of the anchors. Social media is certainly one of those for me. Like booze and cigarettes before it, I feel compelled to be on it, always checking it, always scrolling, always feeling like I need my phone near me just in case.

I’m over it.

I’m starting the blog so that I have a place to show my art, primarily the pieces still in progress, updates from photo trips, and general updates on my projects. I understand that this is some manner of delusion I’m willingly engaging in, but at this point I don’t much care. Life itself is a pointless exercise unless we find something to do, and for me it’s to create. I won’t lie, there’s a feeling inside me that I have to create, that there is some underlying reason to create. Maybe there’s something that needs to get out of me. Maybe there’s something I’m supposed to give the world. Maybe I’m just really fucking delusional. Who knows? Who cares?

I don’t. Maybe. I mean I have to care some if I write that right?