The Girl Who Wanted Illumination

Here we are with "The Girl Who Wanted Illumination."  Character named, Shi Shi.  Last weekend I came across another bundle of scrapbook paper and bejeweled stickers that I wanted to use.  And here we go with my first shot...

Sketched.  A touch difficult at first.  However, the basis was "something cute."

Filling in her eyelids, the heel of my hand came in contact with some drying spots.  So by accident, I splotched her face a little.  My immediate reaction was to take the drawing and crumble it all up.  But I kept going.  There's always ways around these things, right?  Nonetheless, I left the drawing alone for the night after that situation.

Minimal watercolor in use.  Though I began to think what exactly was I going to do for her backdrop.  Should I paint it?  Paint around her?

In the spirit of my last drawing, I took another slice of bristol board and painted it a soft black.  All materials gathered, I knifed out her clothes.  Or the potential areas for clothes.

Seeing that I would glue her onto the black-painted board, I used tape to keep her "clothes" together.  Too much glue everywhere is messy.  Anyway, stenciling out the pieces were a breeze.  Not complicated this time around.

Lovely.  Chalk pastels are all colored and in place.  Soft blue for the hair and a peach tone for skin.  Layers.

I do not like the way I streaked her hair.  It was so wavy and wild that I lost control of its movement.  Also, I think I should've called it a night at this point.  I was ready to lay down.

I can't say this will be the final look.  I had troubles losing its scale with my tiny scanner.  So I used lighting and my phone's camera to get a larger scale.  So I'm not sure yet.  I work with what I have.  Nonetheless, I revived her coloring which gave her this inner illuminating appeal.  Extra sparkle to her eyes, etc.  I'm still on the fence about this one.  Small things I maybe didn't do as well as I hoped earlier in the process seems to show.  But then I look back and think she's too damn cute!  She reminds me of Aja from Jem and the Holograms.

Well?  Thoughts?

Himalayan Salt Lamps

Salt lamps. I've always wanted one, but didn't exactly want to pay $30-something dollars for one. Until now, sort of.  Instead, I bought two that operate as candle holders; buy one get one half off was hard to resist. And I love them, and hope I receive some of their curious benefits. 

If you're not familiar with salt lamps, they're lamps (or candle holders in my case) made from natural salt crystals. My understanding is there are fake ones, however the authentic ones come from the Himalayas.  Give or take any location differences I'm not aware of.  Now the benefits of salt lamps come from their ability to emanate negative ions into the atmosphere, something that you would find in nature. Negative ions sort of counteracts positive ions, or ions released from electronically equipment such as computers and televisions. Or man-made items–to be specific. Nonetheless, the negative ions given by the salt lamps are said to cleanse the ionic air. This, in turn, allegedly relieves people from headaches and respiratory problems caused by prolonged interaction with positive ions. Not that I have any of these health issues (haven’t had an asthma attack in years), but I can only imagine some of the possible, unspoken benefits of owning a salt lamp.

I suppose I'll try to keep things posted on their effects. However, I can say that after leaving them burning all night (which I don't suggest), I did wake up feeling pretty refreshed after some good sleep.  Even as I write this, with a good twenty minutes left before I have to get ready to go to work (I'll refrain from calling it a hellhole), I'm not moved to take one of those sluggishly sour naps.  I'm, in essence, okay.  Which is what I want.  Which is also why I like to try different metaphysical items such as salt lamps, smudge sticks, and stones.  I just want to feel good.  To feel okay.

*Off tangent sidenote: I actually dropped my vial of moldavite oil at work a few days ago.  I hadn't used it in a while, and here I was bringing it in to counteract some of the psychic poison in the area and I dropped it.  It smashed and the entire register area smelled like the oil.  I gathered the moldavite fragments to place in a replacement vial as soon as I get one.*

The video below is the infamous Hibiscus Moon sharing her knowledge on salt lamps.  Carry one, people.

Your Standard Meow

"The annual steeplechase races are the high point in the social calendar of the horse-mad Virginians of cozy Crozet.  But when one of the jockeys is found murdered in the main barn, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen finds herself in a desperate race of her own–to trap the killer.  Luckily for her, she has an experienced ally; her sage tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy.  Utilizing her feline genius to plumb the depths of human depravity, Mrs. Murphy finds herself on a trail that leads to the shocking truth behind the murder.  But will her human companion catch on in time to beat the killer to the gruesome finish line?"

~ Murder, She Meowed

Ugh! I’m here again, trying to write my thoughts on a Rita Mae Brown Mrs. Murphy book. I don’t say “ugh” in a negative way–especially not concerning the book. I say “ugh” because it gets harder and harder to come up with something to say about the books.  Because, like many on-going series, you're either in on the bewitchery or you're not.  And considering Murder, She Meowed is book five, I'm in. 

They're stories revolving around a cat and a dog helping their human companion (they call her “mother”) solve cozy murder mysteries in small-town Crozet, Virginia. They're not the most astounding, intelligent, and thoroughly mind-bending mystery reads; but still they're simply great. What they are are fun, interesting, comfortable, and charming. Either you're lulled into the animalistic perspective of Murphy and Tucker, or you're not.  Or maybe I like them because I love animals, but will pass at having pets.

Regardless of all that, they have that something. I mentioned before how I love Brown’s “creamy” way with words. And how I love her drive in painting small-town citizens and their various nuances and dynamics with one another. Those components of her storytelling remains strong in Murder, She Meowed.  (Actually, I was kind of baffled that the male model character wasn't around this time.) And yes, some of the mystery elements can sometimes come across as a little contrived. Then there’s the sometimes problematic situation of multiply players and perspectives biting into the mystery, meanwhile the trading of information between characters slips from my reading experience.  In other words, sometimes I'm left trying to recall how such-in-such character gathered information privy to only those present at its delivery.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, it’s all about the character of Crozet and its cast, both human and animal alike. It’s that hook of the series that makes this happen.  It's that hook that allows me to slip into a robe and just escape to Crozet as the sun goes down over my window. And arriving and finishing book number five only makes me squeal for the comfort, familiar and animal motivations inside book six.

I just adore the damn series!  THERE!  (^_^)

Comfort Readings

My job makes me sick. No, really. It makes me sick. Clock in. Clock out. Misery. Draining. Being pounded by energy that infects my own. Not living, but slowly dying. Like Spike said to Buffy while she worked at the Double Meat Palace, “This place will kill you.” It’s a phrase that comes to mind as I beg God not to let me die in “this place.”

These past two weeks have been filled with bad weather; snow, icy roads, frozen cars on slushy streets with a manager willing to spin his truck through it all to collect his employees to fill shifts. A manager who just wouldn't give up. My Sundays were filled with running a store alone, while the assistant manager clocks out at 9am or comes in for an hour and a half at 11am to do paperwork and leave as a line brews before my register. I often wonder what‘s the point of her even coming. And when she’s gone, I'm picking up the business phone to calling my general manager (who’s at home with his kids) to tell him that I have a line and he has vendors, complaints, equipment failures, and a dirty store that is cheap and irresponsible of him to give to one employee alone with any expectations.

Last Saturday I told him I wasn't coming the next day.  He would have to find somebody else to manage his store alone Sunday.  And I didn't come.  So I came to work Tuesdays with rumors of my suspension floating around, which I'd gladly take considering the job already snatched me from taking a vacation since last June.

So I have to smudge myself to get rid of psychic garbage, as I wonder when this will end. When will this chaos finally dissipate?

However, there's always books!  So in the meantime, I've gathered comfort. Only two this time, though I browsed Barnes & Nobles for a few more that I placed on my TBR. Nonetheless, emphasizing "comfort," I decided on Rita Mae Brown’s Murdered, She Meowed (book #5 in her Mrs. Murphy series) and The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, book #2 in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series. One involves pets solving crimes; the other an eleven-year-old English girl doing the same.  I haven't cracked open a book all of March, so I have to defibrillate myself with some faves and familiars.

Nevertheless, the two interesting books that I had passed in favor of comfort are the newly encountered Gods and Shadows by Jayde Brooks and Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang.  Two in which I can't wait to check out on my next visit.

So here's to not letting people, places or situations steal our joy!   

The OSI Gone Bye-Bye-Bye

I forgot to mention Jes Battis back when I made posts related to urban fantasy authors whose series I've loved but are no longer in operation. So besides the lovely Lynn Benedict, Battis is definitely up there. Battis wrote a five-book series surrounding a young Canadian Occult Special Investigator named Tess Corday. I know. I know. First, you'd like to know exactly what an Occult Special Investigator or OSI is. Well, it’s an investigative unit that specializes in the occult, or occult rattled cases. It’s like an alternative division to the whole CSI mechanic and how it pertains to law enforcement. Therefore, Tess’s job usually has her castigated by unruly vampires, necromancers and other nightly fiends. Well, opposed to murderous humans and the occasional blue-collar criminal. So it‘s all about the world she lives in, and one that Battis painted quite nicely (until it sort of fell apart in the last book).

Despite his set-up, Battis's protagonist is very much human. Although later her father’s genetic truths come to light. This becomes an overarching plot, unfolding next to the case-by-case format spanning the five books. And while all that is tugging and momentum-filled, Tess isn't alone in her journey.  There are secondary characters with their own stories to tell. Her best friend, Derrick, is gay and telepathic.  He also works for the OSI. Additionally, his boyfriend is a hearing-impaired profiler of sorts. Nonetheless, the two (gradually more) share an apartment with a teenage pseudo-vampire named Mia.  Mia bears a striking personality resemblance to Buffy’s sister Dawn, although Mia isn't nowhere near as insufferable.  Tess and her best friend become Mia's guardians after the first book, Night Child. I was always confused about Mia's circumstances, but there’s something about her breaking out into vampire mode and ruling the underworld one day. It’s hazy, but somewhat of the gist of her story. Nonetheless, while these three jump-start the series, there is also Tess’s boyfriend and local chief necromancer, Lucian Agrado.

So the cast is wide and diverse, and generally different. Especially with the tie of the hearing-impaired character. You don't see these characters too often in urban fantasy, or I can't recall a time. Furthermore, while Lucian gave great body and sex appeal, he wasn't like other male characters in this genre where their bod and sex appeal becomes the focal point of the protagonist’s obsession. No. Lucian very much kept Tess in check, and her likewise. Together the cast got into plenty of trouble. Each with a sort of ability and charm that compliments the next, leading to the resolutions behind many of Tess’s cases. 

I truly miss and enjoy the series, even though the last book was just this long, morbid monologue/meditation provided by Tess regarding her values and that of her father. Though sadly, I think the series really started to pick up with the third book (that’s when I solidified my love of Battis work), but didn't get the chance to really shine.

All that aside, you can tell Battis watches a lot of Buffy, my personal favorite TV show.  So if you like Buffy, you may love this charming and humorous treat.  Interesting investigations, a slice of love, friendship-driven, and mysterious family secrets abound.

~3. Back 2 High School - Towel Style ~

All right, guys!  Here we are with the next five panels of my old high school comic featuring my Towel character.  It's slowly, slowly moving out of the slice-of-life shoujo style and into the action, magical girl realm.

Ah, in the last post I couldn't figure out this guy's name.  Akiru, huh?  Anyway, apparently he has always noticed Towel around school.  So when he asks is her best friend, Cornbread, her boyfriend, she freaks out and hits him.  While the attack wasn't necessary, she freaked out for good reason.

How inpatient of her.  Here Akiru is trying to ask her out and Towel's like, "hurry up."  I have to laugh, though.  That's very much like myself.  Get to the point.

Here's the new girl again.  She's giving her teachers' hell per usual.  What's her deal?

Yep.  Curse the teacher out.  Snap the ruler in half.  Then kick the teacher in the face while proclaiming how things are about to "change" in the classroom.  Sounds about right with something I would think of back when I was 17.

Now all of the students are flying out of the classroom under her influence–with the exception of Towel who seems unaffected by her sway.  Even Clip sticks out her tongue and splits for the door.  So is this new girl human?  I more or less took this scene from an incident that happened to me while in the tenth grade.  The lights went out in the entire school, and when the substitute we had for English left to check everything out, the entire class got up and left.  I'll never understand why I got into that, seeing as I didn't have anywhere to go.  However, I have to admit that that week of in-house suspension was great.  I spent that whole week writing a story until I finished it.

See you guys in the next 5!

Anand's Calling...

Anand Giridharadas’s India Calling is sort of my first foray into readings based on Indian culture, and the country in general. It’s an “intimate portrait” written by Giridharadas regarding his experience as an American-born Indian returning to the country his parents immigrated from before his birth (as well as his sister‘s). He exams the many influences as to why his parents left India, between a somewhat stifling culture and a tumbling economy. And then he relays how many of those grounds for fleeing have evolved and changed over the years. For better or worse is often the question. Nevertheless, it’s at a consequence that some Indians find themselves culturally deprived and economically disadvantaged compared to the transfixed success of others.

So what could be the catalysis to this change within the country? Here’s where Giridharadas also assesses the cultural influences outside of, say, the caste system that once held a cord over India‘s public. Women and men of India are beginning to take control of their lives–their circumstances. And it’s complicated to do so, as the people of India give away many of their old cultural standards for something new, adventurous, and maybe even considered sinfully enticing. Giridharadas explores these changes through seven chapters where individuals he‘s spoken with, concerning the conceptualization of India Calling, share their stories. From fundamentalist, entrepreneurs, spiritual, and love-lost citizens, he categorizes his chapters between Dreams, Ambition, Pride, Anger, Love, and Freedom. And it’s here that I’m going to share quotes and pieces of each chapter to give you guys and idea as to how revealing I found India Calling.

DREAMS

"India was changing when I arrived, and it continued to change dramatically, viscerally, improbably.  The freeze I had sensed as a child seemed to be thawing.  It was partly the enormous physical churn: the quantities of earth being moved, the malls and office towers and gated communities being built, the restaurants opening, the factories pumping out cars, the blue jeans being sewn.  It was the new verticality of the big cities, the slum dwellers in Bombay moving into towering apartments financed by New York investors, the mushrooming of village backwaters into congested satellite cities such as Gurgaon and Navi Mumbai and Electronics City.  It was the villagers who have been moved off their land so that Tata Motors, the once-stagnant company where my father worked, whose lifeless culture had pushed him toward America, could built the world's cheapest car, priced at a little more than $2,000."