Let's see how far I've come--2011 to 2013

Here's what my good art used to look like.

I shudder to see it now. But I do like the flowy hair on the bespectacled young male whose name I have forgotten. Kinda want to play with it...
Hey, I draw what I enjoy.

Here is what a quick sketch looks like now.

It took me 15-20 minutes. I still want some professional training, i.e., an art class for portraits or the like, but nonetheless I do see an improvement. I just recently obtained a set of watercolor pencils. Here is my experimentation with 100% dry:

Oh no, it's hung sideways...is that better or worse than upside-down?

Here we go, a quaint farmhouse sunset. The weather will be lovely tomorrow in this domestic scene.
(I promise, it looks better in person. All the more reason to come see my future galleries, because the scanned versions just...aren't the same.)

My humans have taken on a more humanish quality, but big noses and pronounced features keep them cartoonish enough to count as semi-realistic. Oh, how I long for anatomy skills like Miss Burge's, or a fun originality like Miss Meago's, but alas! I am more often than not clearly a novice and self-taught. Still, progress heartens me, and though paging through my old sketchbooks is at times painful, I am encouraged by how far I have come, and hopeful as for where I am to go next.

*~*~*~*

Shout-out to all of my friends: I am sorry that I am not always in cell phone range, and/or that I am terrible at staying in contact. But vacations are restorative times for me, where the pressure to always keep in touch in a twenty-first century timely fashion is lifted. If left to my own devices, I would do nothing but write letters to you personally and make posts on this blog and my Tumblog to show that I am indeed alive and kicking. Not many of you read this. In fact, I only know of one...but nonetheless I am communicating with you all here. Huh. I make very little sense sometimes. But with many companions on all corners of the internet and many ways to commune, I cannot possibly make sense. My head is spinning. I belong in another century. Adequacy in technology does not mean love for it. What I love about the internet is not its speed nor its silent pressure on my subconscious, it is the ability to access things and return to them later if I wish to do so. When romanticized in my head, it's like a massive library with new books always coming in. One can get lost so easily. I have buried myself in it and never wish to resurface.

I am sorry. The cost of my companionship is alternating silences and aching monologues. Signing out for the night.
Day. It's late evening but the sun is out.
Gah.

Thoughts from Places: Big Timber, MT

The first leg of my epic three-week separation from my own bed is nearly complete. My family, being the only Georgia branch of the combined married conglomerate, must take great pains to meet with our Oklahoma and Montana branches involving planes and automobiles, but unfortunately, trains are too costly to be included. 'Tis a pity, as trains are the way an independent teenaged girl ought to take trips, like Pollyanna. Or Katniss Everdeen.
But moving back to reality for just a moment: Allow me to meticulously break down the details of our trip, including its preparation but eliminating the irrelevant bits.

Preparations and Arrival
The packing of this excursion involved a very late Saturday night of riddling and fiddling and stuffing things into tiny places. With baggage fees being so very high and our needs as capitalistic
Americans away from our large, storage-filled house (that needs to redo its kitchen cabinets and fix up the master bath, according to its Mistress) so very great, packing involved leaving one suitcase in one place and taking the others. Three of our brave company ventured ahead on Sunday, my hair still damp from the baptistery. Journeying for a combined total of one day, we stopped for lunch on my mother's side of the family and ended the day on my father's. It's a dizzying experience. My brain tricked itself into thinking it was fine and tried to get some reading done, but alas, 'twas not to be.

All of the Fish Are Hiding from Us
The next two days were spent as an incomplete squadron as we awaited our fourth member to complete her duties and rejoin us. Fortunately, they were not dull, only somewhat frustrating. On an expedition to the top of the world--or as close as you can get around here--we prepared ourselves to come home hauling skinny fish in our creels once I'd learned how to clean them and nicked my fingers on hooks and knives. Gardiner Lake in the Beartooth Mountains often has them in abundance. But oddly, after climbing up ten thousand feet and slightly down in forty-two degrees of thin air and wind, there wasn't a bite. It was stark and beautiful as ever, though. There's a grandness that no photograph can grab nicely enough, at least not with the camera at our disposal. It seems, whenever we venture up and in, that the valley is our own, and devoid of others hiking it. The snow is not soiled by any footprints but our own. The tiny alpine flowers sway in the wind that is funneled by the high peaks to us alone. This isn't true forever, of course, but I'll gladly share it with the student we met who had some foxes tagged with GPS collars. He even had the scruffy stubble you need to qualify as somebody whom I would like to meet.
My father can tell you a lot about this state. He seems to know so well the places and things he loves best. Though Gardiner is technically in Wyoming, the whole range seems to lie between borders. In some places, three states are visible at once, but they all connect seamlessly and don't look any different from the other. For a moment, one can trick themselves into thinking that the development happening miles away hasn't happened yet. They are timeless, those mountains. In their great height and tranquility, it's easy to forget the rest of the world. I traded that for my father's voice breaking the silence every now and then. That, and the roll of impossibly paved highway below the truck. Our vantage point and quiet crackle of the old country radio station were better than any trout.

The Crew Is Completed
Mother arrived exhausted and didn't get used to the time change for days. It's tough on her every year. And the long drives to get everywhere don't perk us up at all. Six hours it took to travel from Big Timber to Swan Lake near Glacier Park. It's just below Alberta and can't get much more beautiful if it tried. The lake felt private despite the houses all round it. It was incredibly peaceful. Mountains framed the slate-gray waters, and the air was lightly fragranced with pine. The only complaints seemed to be about the iciness of the water and the multitudes of caterpillars underfoot. In the streets it's as if the caterpillar French Revolution is taking place, with the barricades of Paris broken and the bodies of the fallen strewn about. But that's only on the bill when we produce and direct my action-adventure-romance flick with Horatio and Carmela the caterpillars. They meet in Monte Carlo in an internet café. There's a lot of sports cars and a kidnapping ring involved. Release date is set for next May.
As I grew acquainted with some relatives more unfamiliar to me, my mind wandered to home and how it compares. There's a familiarity in attitudes and appearances. It was nice to see so many curly-haired, slightly sarcastic people who allow for large pauses in conversations while everyone thinks of something to say next. But there are some differences as well, like in noses. I don't have Italian nose that my dad, grandma, and many of my other relatives have. And the Southern vs. Northern accents are fun for a linguistics nut like me. Bahg and bayg is enough to send Mom and I into a fit of giggles. It's just too much fun finding things that natives don't! Lest I forget myself (which I often do), I'll end up saying abut rather than about.

The Next Best Thing to Going To the Alps
That's what I'm going to call Glacier for two reasons: one, it's mountainous and absolutely stunning; two, there are so many accents there it's enough to drive a girl batty.
We didn't see any mountain goats, which made me a little sad. But we did see wide expanses of craggy mountain and snowy peak and deep valley on a precarious stretch of road called Going To The Sun. It was lovely, but if I was completely honest, I feel that the desolate beauty of the Beartooth suits my taste a little more. However, I would most certainly return, as Dad plans to, because the lodge that we visited was so kind as to put in a reading room. Perhaps next year we can also get a rowboat.
And oh, the accents. So many, and so many languages, too. I would love to be a ranger and sign people into the park just so I could ask them where they were from. We met some Floridians with familiar accents, but that was just the start. I heard some thick Chinese? Korean? I'm scared to guess...let's just say Asian accents so I'm not incorrect. And I caught a snippet of a British accent but I couldn't find its owner which made me mad. And on the way to St. Mary's for lunch I heard a conversation in Russian and fangirled on the inside because I love that language for some reason. I blame Regina Spektor. And I heard some French? I think? Gah, it's hard to tell when I can't hide behind anonymity and a notebook in a café. And Canadians. Canadians everywhere. As far as the eye can see. I want to join them, with their wooly clothes and assumed politeness. Someday...

Conclusion
I love this place deeply. And as I drive through its vast openness, I think about our country and what it was built upon. Disconnected from free wifi and the news, I am reminded of a time when the West was intimidating and empty, as I ride through its intimidating emptiness. I am reminded of a time when things looked bleak, but the dream still thrived. And I came to the conclusion that cynicism comes with prosperity. When we have determined that things are good as they are, we fight to never let things change. But for others, who are ready to try anything, that would only keep them forever trapped in their despair. "Despair" in the richest, most comfortable people in the world. But happiness does not keep itself trapped in the trappings of capitalism and development. It can be found in anyone who knows what the truly important things are, and can appreciate where they are in history. If government grows more powerful, so be it. If it grows less powerful, so be it. If we lose everything, so be it. If we are no longer the best there is, so be it. I, at least, will try to remember what is truly important, and see that history is happening now and I was there for it. And that is so cool.

And now I, who got within forty miles of a residence of half of the Vlogbrothers, will sign off with this: DFTBA. Granny, I will see you on Thursday.

This is turning into a liveblog of my rampage through YouTube

A lighter, cut video to finish off. It's not a TED Talk, so I didn't title it as such.
And I did all of this while painting my nails.
It is 7:30 and I am really hungry so farewell.






No, I am not missing school! I'd be doing this anyway...

Sometimes I watch TED talks part deux

As a citizen of the internet, I feel that this needs more views. My overarching response is "feasfddsafbdfssad all of the yes are belong to you." And this was 2007, everybody. With the purchase of Tumblr this is becoming relevant again.

Sometimes I watch TED Talks

WARNING: It gets pretty graphic when the slideshow starts.

I can't even state the importance, relevance, coolness, awfulness, and Importance with a capital I of this. So I'll let it tell you.

Finding footnotes in this gray world of ours

I love reading the books in Dad's library. He highlights and leaves footnotes from his past readings, and sometimes I leave imprints of my own on its text. I opened up to The Great Divorce's preface, and it took only one page for things to be very, very relevant. It started with Philosophy Club and ended with an inked-in diagram.


For about five Fridays of this past semester, I attended what is called the Philosophy and Free Thought Club at my high school. It's a student-led group managed mainly by three senior guys and is mostly attended by the magnet students, which really can go without saying. I was interested for two main reasons used by my friends in convincing me to go:

1. It's a really cool club with good discussion and questions not a lot of people are willing to ask.
2. There's free tea and coffee.

They got me in with a debate on the afterlife and why humans believe in a life after death. I always drank both offered beverages, even when there was no sugar or milk.

It was a great club--I was able to get a word in every now and then and listen to a lot of intelligent people say their bits as well. The problem is that, whenever people would inevitably disagree with the discussion leader, he would argue the same point back to them as if opinion justified everything and made him right. One day he grilled me for my "black and white" way of thinking. I tried to explain my logic that if there was no absolute black or white, how could anything be definite? Without opposing ends of a spectrum there can be no gray in the first place.

This also came up in a personal conversation with a friend. She asked me suddenly, "What color is the world?"

I, being the literal thinker I am, replied, "Well, the world is blue and green and brown and white an--"

"Gray."

"Gray?"

"There is no good or evil, only gray."

This took me by surprise. She had her own faith. Different from mine, but still. Don't most religions abide to the idea that there is good and evil in the world? For if there wasn't, how could there be a right or wrong way to go? How could there be anything but the sameness of character and behavior? 

"Yes," I agreed, "the world is gray. It looks that way from a distance. But I think that it's like a printed magazine, where if you look close enough, you can see the individual spots of black and white that all come together to form this gray."

It may not have been said that calmly and eloquently, but let's pretend, shall we?

And tonight, after snatching another Lewis book from my father's massive library, I read into it and find this quote:

"[when speaking of Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell] The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and nearer and meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good." C. S. "Jack" Lewis, The Great Divorce.

Next to the road analogy Dad had drawn a set of lines all converging in the center. (Or is it centre?) Below it in quotes was a common phrase people who support all religions use, "all roads lead to God." What I never realized was that, to a certain extent, I may be making that assumption as well.

Christianity is the only religion I have ever known. I even go to the same sect. Church of Christ, whole life long, even in my dear mother's womb. I know what I believe and intend to grow within that belief in this time of waiting for the next chapter of my life. But I cannot assume that everyone else feels so deeply grounded when they go to their place of worship. All of my peers are different--I have one guy over here who will profess his non-belief in any god, but loves reading Lewis. I have another one who wants everything to be secular despite having a belief system, or at least a sense of one. I have the girl who will insist that nobody curse in her presence because of her faith--I admire her a lot. And then there is me. Nobody is surprised when they learn I'm Christian, at least. But the few times where I work up the ability to talk about my religion it's shot down rather quickly and openly criticized, and all I can do is say, "Well..." Maybe I lack courage, or maybe it's the situations I put myself into, but in comparison to many people I know, I think I feel fairly secure and sure of myself. And coming from me, a young teenage girl living in an era where the average psychiatric patient in the 1950's had less stress than I have now, that's saying something.

I cannot say for certain what will happen in the coming years. Not for my family, my friends, least of all me. But what I do know is that I have people I can count on in the crow's nest. I have the capability to be in the crow's nest for other people too, on certain things. And I know that I have deep passions about the world and the increasingly different branches of it, and that words are both my healer and my sword. I can turn to words I trust to heal and seek guidance, and use them to forge words of my own. A scythe to reap even more, a saber to cut through the dense undergrowth and reach sunlight, a rapier if necessary, or to heal the other lost ones.

On a different note, I also know that I really appreciate Jack's use of the semicolon.

I want to be good

First, read this post (and leave the song playing in another tab if you so wish).

Done reading?

I want to be a good musician. That's about all I can be with my level of skill. I don't want to be unaccessible or better than everyone else. I'm in actuality not that talented. I'm just playing because it's fun, I enjoy it, and I like paying homage to artists I enjoy by covering their songs. What people don't seem to understand when they see my art or read my stuff or hear me play is that I could go to college for art and still hear the same thing--"I'll never be as good as you." Sure you will! I strongly believe that anything can be taught or picked up if one so desires. But this comparing to someone else you know is silly. The most accomplished artist in the world and the six-year-old with a crayon both create for the same reason. They are compelled to express a viewpoint or an idea bumping around in the confines of their brain and have the means to do so. There really is nothing else to it. It's only when comparisons and feelings of inadequacy enter the picture that things get complicated.

Artists learn to get very good at selective hearing. If the criticism they receive is from someone who views art as "performance-based instruction" to put it in the terms of a poster that depressed me in an elementary school art room, or someone who really doesn't know better and just likes to point out things they find unpleasing to the eye, it goes in and out. That painting/drawing/sculpture/story/song wasn't meant to be pleasing to people. It was meant to express joy or frustration or greif or this burning, aching desire to stand up on a soapbox for a moment and say something of value to the artist. Art is an appeal to the soul.

So I don't need to be skilled. I don't need to blow people away with my words. The truth, even if spoken thousands of times in thousands of simple and complicated ways, will always be well-received. And if I do wind up blowing somebody away, all I hope is that they heard me, and for a moment, they saw me for who I was and were not afraid.