Eye candy glommy goodness

So, with the start of the new term, come new sights and sounds for the mushier minded folk such as I. Left to the wastelands of summertime where all I could think about were blood orange mason jars, comics, video games, and naked hot tubbing.

And now?

Well, it's more or less the same, but with a few new tricks up my sleeve. Through endless wandering in the vastness of intergalactic planetary interwebby goodness I have stumbled upon some media that I personally find to be of interest. I've somehow managed to find a few animation shorts in their entirety (at least I hope so) through YouTube.

The first of which is Oscar Winner 2005's "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello" , an Australian short created by Anthony Lucas.

It is set in the world of Gothia, a noir steampunk world in which the protagonist Jasper Morello is sent on a mission by the government to set up mobile weather beacons while leaving his wife back in the city where a plague is decimating its population. *inhale* And that's where it starts. I'm a fan for the aesthetics, but maybe I was too distracted because the plot felt a little sleepy for what it was about. I'd be willing to give it another go. Anyway, here it is:

Following that I came across a short I'd seen on good ol' Netflix, called Harvie Krumpet. This was also an Australian short, won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 2003, and, interestingly enough, also found in full length on YouTube. Who knew? Directed by Adam Elliot, the story is about sweet old Harvek Milos Krumpetzki, who moves to Australia from Poland during the outbreak of WWII and proceeds to suffer one disaster after the next throughout his time spent on this earth. Yet despite the maximum ridiculosity that permeates throughout Harvey Krumpet's life, he maintains a wonderfully optimistic outlook. Ingenious, and enviable. It's really sad in some parts, and downright hilarious in others. The values are simple and straightforward, with Geoffery Rush as the narrator. What more could you ask for?

And, last but not least, the cutest short I've seen so far. Gotta love me some little blue aliens:

I'm better than a shitty bowl of soup

Had another lunch with my dad today. It's probably the 3rd or 4th one where we haven't fought. Again. Whoa...wait...what?

Well, I suppose you could say there was an "almost" skirmish. He made a passive aggressive comment about how my sister is a little more extroverted than my brother or I was in high school, and how she's joined the speech and debate team. Also, how she is more proactive about asking for help instead of letting things stew and just sit there.

He pointed out how I could have worked harder on my grades, and could have done more in high school and gotten a scholarship, but I didn't. And if I was so indecisive about what I wanted to do with my life when I got into college that going to a community college would have been better instead of going to a state university and wasting money.

I simply dismissed him by calling him out on his passive aggressive behavior and saying that I'm the one who's gonna be paying it off anyway, so why should he care.

And...well...here are my thoughts on the matter:

Could I have gotten better grades? Oh yes, absolutely. If I had truly tried, I probably could have been a straight A student. I probably could have gotten myself oodles of scholarships if I worked harder in the community service club at my high school, if I was more active in sports, if I had stumbled upon some life-changing make a world difference project and smiled into the camera showing my optimism for a better change for the world and believing I could do some honest bit of good.

Yes...I could have been your picture perfect pearly white smiling hopeful, sitting so proper in my school desk working on basic req papers and projects that would have absolutely nothing to do with what I wound up doing with my life later on once I figured out what I was meant for on this teeny hapless rock. I could have found a nice boy, I could have gotten my masters, settled, nurtured my crotch fruit to its full potential and repeated the cycle. I could live the Stepford wife life, minus the housewife idiosyncrasy.

Or:

I could choose the path where I smoked, fucked, and wandered my way to where I am now. Which involved a lot of cigarettes, weed, peoples' naughty bits, and putting my hand out to say "Hi. Nice to meet you." I did a lot of that, in one form or another. I did it when I changed my major 4 times, I did it when I met the people who I would come to call my best and closest friends, I did it when I found myself at an emotional/mental/financial rock bottom and pulled myself up by my bootstraps and continued trudging forward.

I decided to not take the easy way out and see what exactly it was I could accomplish on my own. Did that mean mommy and daddy abandoned me completely? No, I still got some help from them, and I am/will be forever grateful for that. And I plan to pay it back to them when I am in a place of career finality to do it. Or...y'know, when my paychecks are bigger and I can give them stuff back in general.

If I had gone to community college first, I would have met a whole slough of different people. I would have had different friends, different inspirations, different life experiences. Would I have become stronger through all that? Would I have come out publicly sooner? Would I have found my path to becoming an art therapist? What would have happened?

The answer to that is an enigma. I know this. But I feel the need to fiercely defend what I've chosen to do with myself, nonetheless. Because according to my dad, the message I'm getting from him is that what I'm doing is "good enough". And not "good enough" in the way where you're crawling from the wreckage on your hands and knees after surviving a war-zone heart of gold kind of "good enough". I'm talking "good enough" because I wasn't doing anything better, so this is fine. Kind of like settling for the shitty bowl of soup in a restaurant that's alright because you figure everything else tastes terrible, so what's the point in trying to find a different restaurant that could be better? Or, heaven forbid, make the soup at home yourself?

I came from an easy upbringing. Not wealthy, per se. But easy. And I could have kept it easy, I could have just coasted on by. But I decided to take control and make my own decisions.

So...yea. I'm gonna be buried six feet under the debt I'll be owing when school's out for good. No, I'm not on any kind of scholarship. Yet. But am I still just "good enough"? I'd like to think I'm pretty damn amazing. I just want to believe it 100% of the time, and not just 60%.

Tats

Hello, my name is Teresa, and I have an addiction to my tattoo artist, Drat.

So this is the man who has stolen my heart and I'm pretty sure will have possession over my entire body. Ink wise because he's, y'know, getting married and stuff. I've finally seen his updated portfolio and this man now OFFICIALLY owns my heart completely. It's hidden in the corner of his tattoo toolbox because I secretly put it there.

And in case you guys are feeling amiss with how smitten I am by this gent, just read his blog. Or look at his portfolio.

Here are some samples of his work:

This is mine. This is the 7th and most recent session that was accomplished thus far. The photo was taken after the scales were freshly inked. And did I mention he was inking each and every scale....individually? Because if I didn't, I just did now. Oh God. Ow.

This was how I fell in love with him:

This last one with the jellyfish was what helped me decide he was the one for me. And of course not two minutes later he walks in the door. That was 3 years ago.

I'm gonna be promoting and publicizing what I'd like my Christmas present to be from those who are trying to come up with something for me. I'm pretty straightforward. Anything helps, And at the very least I can slowly put things away for myself as well.

Excitement abounds, and I am the intrepid explorer to make such shenanigans a reality. I am the Hobbes to my Calvin, the crew to my Captain Mal Reynolds, the Ren to my Stimpy, the Grr to my Zim. And if it means waiting in the rain next to Totoro waiting for a crazy cat-bus then by golly I'll do it sitting in my upside down umbrella on the ground straining my little eyeballs far into the night.

Another blog? Geesh.

So, like most folks, there's that "steady stream of consciousness" thing that happens, and so far I've been writing to myself in my journal because it allows me to 1. remember what it is I've thought and felt, 2. work on my censor. Or, rather, to work on not having one.

And yet at the same time, part of me misses the act of blogging personally. I mean I've got my side project for my future webcomic going, and it's great because I've been desperately wanting to get this thing going for almost a year. So in Teresa-land, that means I am meant to make this happen.

I've kept many blogs in the past, going through the phases of LiveJournal, Xanga, AsianAvenue (pre-n00b status, i.e. we had to create the html ourselves to make the site bad-ass), and most recently, MySpace. I've been skirting the blog-o-sphere and letting myself be public again because I've been enjoying the past 2 -3 years of being private. It was a habit that needed practicing because the very fact that I needed so much validity from others to commentate on how my life was going was inevitably leading me to very low morale and self esteem.

And it's average enough, thank you very much. Or better than, I suppose.

So...to give a summary about the things that have happened recently:

I'm finally sticking to a career choice and not putzing around with school anymore. I've picked my focus, which is Arts Practices (meaning that I can pick almost any art classes I want and add up the score at the end to say "I win!" and get my degree). I'm minoring in Psychology and when it's time to get my tucus to grad school, I'll be going into Art Therapy. By the time I'm done with all this I'll be in my 30's, and while some people are grumbling and mumbling about how they wish they could be back in their 20's, I'm looking forward to when the hum drum of school gets left behind. I'll miss it, for sure. And I'll reminisce on bygone days when I was an irresponsible (sort of ) hooligan. But I know I'll be grateful for the present and look onward towards the future.

I'm in a lovely committed relationship with my partner, Noah. Come November we'll have been together for two years. TWO. YEARS. Longest relationship of my life. And his, coincidentally. It's been quite the gender bender since we've gotten together, and I find myself feeling more or less content with my identity and how I sit inside myself as a human. Part of me wants to say I've finally reached my peak and realized that I finally know for me what "queer" means...but I know that it'll turn itself on its head in the future and to that...well, we'll see what happens.

Somewhere in this silly month was mine and my second husband Tim's 5 year anniversary of being besties. (Noah's the first) After being in each others' orbit for this long we finally become roommates. Which was about damn time, in my opinion. Because I'm loving my refurbished family. Two cats, two husbands, and while I'd like to say I'm the ringleader of it all, I prefer to be the one who exists in this strange and adventurous land. I'd give it a title, but I can only call it...This Land. ;)

I'm 23 years old, and while that's decently young part of me feel more than decently seasoned. People say I act like I'm 24 - 25, so I wonder what'll happen when I reach that? Silly business.

Work is steady again, finally. After almost two years of absurdity and bouncing around from job to job I'm ready for some stability. I love my co-workers, my boss is rad, and the hours are where I want them. It also seems like I'm here to stay, so hopefully I won't be looking at potentially getting shafted again. It's been a big fear of mine for a while, but after 6 months I think it's finally time to relax.

I'm currently immersing myself in comic culture, meaning that I'm trying desperately to brush up on my history, learn the ins and outs of "the greats", and in the process create, create, create.

I guess that's it for now. Until next time.