Yesterday after my portrait class was over i drove into Laguna and went to my favorite spot to eat my lunch. Said spot is a bench on the top of a ridge overlooking the ocean, one of the best views in the world. Yesterday was no exception. It was around 1:30, and the sun was high and he breeze was cool...and i had never seen the water look so incredible. It was like looking down from a cliff in Cancun or Fiji...the water was so bright and clear and dyed with such brilliant shades of blue! i breathed deep and just gazed out into it with joy and wonderment. What an awesome gift...
In my portrait class we finished a head painting we started last week. I did mine of a student who sat for us. I thought i'd put it up since people always ask me to post my work...so here you are! The first is the underpainting...more of a drawing, but in paint. I did that last week.
The second, of course, is the "finished" painting (sorry it's abit blurry). It was only meant as a quick excersise, so altogether we only had about 4-5 hours. Less than 3 hours to do the actual painting. But i enjoyed it...i'm excited because we're starting another one tomorrow, and we'll be finishing it next week. I love portraiture!! i could just do that forever, if i was able to.
I had that class this morning...the lesson learned? Pretty much that Yayway (Yaweh...as my teacher spells it) is "Really mean and unfair." amazing.
At least it's another beautiful day...(deeeep sigh...)
Sometimes there is so much to write you just can’t write. I’ve felt that way all day every time I’ve attempted to compose this post…and I keep starting over and over. There has been a certain disquieting thought occupying my mind for the past couple of years, and rarely do I let it overwhelm me. But for the past week or so I have let it take precedence over most other things...mostly because it just keeps popping up in my head…
I don’t know if I want to be an artist anymore.
okay…big deal. Except for the fact that my entire life, that’s all I’ve worked for. It’s all I’ve felt I could ever do well. Yes, I’ve dabbled in other things that interest me. I write a lot. I’ve taken singing lessons. I learned web design and computer graphics. I love traveling and learning history. I’ve studied French, Italian and German with great enthusiasm and interest…but not with great success. But I’ve never felt like I excelled in anything. I’m a good reader…but there’s not a lot to do with that; however much I adore it.
These days school is hard for me for so many reasons. Many I’ve related before, but many I have not. I just don’t find the same joy in painting as I seemed to before. Drawing portraits I will never tire of…but what about illustrating my own graphic novel? Living in Italy? Creating music? Studying literature? Learning Japanese? Animation?
Perhaps i’m merely in a slump…but I feel like I’ve been here for a very long time. Check out these posts from June 9, and June 18 2004... I know i am where i am for a reason. But i’m not making the most of it and i’m discouraged. If i even had the chance to do any of those things…would i?
i really don't know. or maybe i'm just afraid to say i wouldn't. i hate feeling frightened of life...! What a wretched, shameful, impossible burden!!
it's about 12 hours later than when i started this post. my eyes are heavy. but i can't go to sleep yet...first i have to wash my hair...which is now past my waist. (that's just for future reference for me).
You know what...? i'm starting to get very weary of school. i've been going to school for nearly 19 straight years of my entire life. There are days when i love the idea of just being able to absorb and learn and not have to worry about working full time...but mostly i can't wait to just get my life started...whenever that may be.
Last night i was so tired driving back to my apartment from Pasadena that once i was in Orange County around 0023 i came to a nice slow stop at a green light, waited for it to turn yellow, and drove on through when it changed to red. no, i'm serious. Praise Jesus no one was coming the other way...i didn't even realize what i had done until i was through the intersection.
I'm sitting outside at school on some steps on the hillside where i can still get wireless. I just finished classes for the day...my hands are nice and raw and sticky and blackened from making a wire sculpture of my head. Actually, it was fun. Hot, difficult and frustrating, but fun. I'll take a picture of it at some point and post it.
I was kind of dead all day today...especially this morning in my history class where i got to learn all about how Moses got the Ten Commandmants from a burning bush and why the four gospels were actually NOT written by Matthew Mark Luke and John, that God is a big old spoilsport because He wouldn't let Adam and Eve have sex and that their noble rebellion from his rigid rules was what caused the fall (which was ALL Eve's fault, of course, further proving what a Patriarchal, tyrranic religion Christianity is), and about how we can't really trust anything written in the Bible because its history and origins are so unreliable, but why we can trust the authenticity of the Qur'an. I wanted to throw up. I kept my eyes on the table when i could, so my teacher wouldn't see the horrified look on my face. There were times, however, where i was looking around the classroom to see if anyone else was as appalled, or amused, as i was. Quickly realizing that i was more likely to be surrounded by Atheists and Buddhists rather than fellow believers, i gave up. The only other Christian i knew of in the class was dozing the whole time.
uhuhuuhgggggg. i'm sleepy and dirty and gross. Time to drive back to the apt...get a workout...make dinner...do homework...wash my hair...and then, MAYBE then...i can go to bed.
Well, i finished The Lord of the Rings. And after a month and a half i emerge back into the real world...and for the fifth time, the search for a suitable replacement begins. It is always so difficult for me to get through the last few chapters of that book... a parting of sweet sorrow at it's best (and worst)! I will say this once, if you go your whole life without ever reading this story, and having only seen the movies (which i will not watch much anymore...perhaps more on that later) you have cheated yourself of one of the greatest, most beautiful joys in all of literature. With that said, i move on. (;
I have a few choices for reading that are tempting...among them are The Count of Monte Cristo, a Mozart biography, War in Heaven (by Charles Williams), How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Caihill (sp?)...and a few others. None of which i have ever read.
Any ideas or suggestions are more than welcome.
*(oh, and if you haven't already, make sure you take a look at the post below...)*
I got this in an e-mail my mom sent me today, obviously written at least a few months ago...but it is poignant and inspiring...and the perfect image of what love is. I agree with what my mom wrote...that in the video where he lifts his son, it is a beautiful picture of us and the Lord. The images in the video will bring tears to your eyes...but you won't want to dry them. At least i didn't. (:
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly] I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.'' But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. "Dad,'' he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. "No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think? Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. "No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. "The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''
Last night, after a day at my school finalizing registration and cleaning my apartment, i drove back to Pasadena to the No Future Cafe (a small music venue) just in time to miss Pip and Jeff (of The Dandelion Council) play. ): But there were two guys after them called El Ten Eleven who were pretty sweet. Actually, i liked them quite QUITE a lot. I bought a cd, and Sarah bought a shirt, of course. Most defenitely a new favorite. You can see videos of the bands from last night on the website...the sound is pretty iffy though. (by the way...if you click on the thumbnails, it will take you to a larger picture. just so ya know...)
afterwards there was goofyness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah and Pip...can anyone say cutest picture EVER?? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah and Alec...looking "peaceful" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff "I so wasn't making that face!" Adams ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then, Boba...naturally! We tried to go to the Karaoke bar (pip wanted me to sing a Doobie Brothers song with him) but we had to purchase more drinks, or what have you, to stay. Being the penniless artists we are, we left. But there was this man there singing a pop ballad in Chinese...blew us away. Instead we hung out in the parking lot and sang Father Abraham, talked about funny noises, and told stories and listened to music in the car.
A few days ago, Sarah and i were talking about how we would love to see Jurassic Park again...mostly because we haven't watched it in years. It's a subject we bring up every few months or so...and it's one of those things that you always forget about when you're at the video store looking for somehthing to rent. Last night, on a rare (honestly) evening of flipping through channels on our brand new directv system (the novelty has not worn off), Sarah and i chanced upon...what else? Jurassic Park! It had only been going for about a half hour...and we were just in time for the T-rex scene. The sfx are still spectacular. It was quite fun.
When the movie was over, we flipped back one channel and watched a special on the Nat'l Geographic station about ocean trenches and Tsunamis. The ocean has always held a mysterious, haunting fascination for my sister and i. The narrator said that only 10% of the worlds oceans have been explored...and the last attempt tp reach the bottom of the Mariana trench, the deepest in the ocean, was in 1960! Forget outer space...lets explore our own planet! Let's learn more about our very own alien life 7 miles below the surface!! 7 miles...i read somewhere that if you cut Mount Everest off at sea level and put it on the ocean bottom in the Mariana Trench, there would still be over a mile of water over the top of it. In the documentary, we learned that the pressure at the bottom is so intense (16,000lbs per sq inch!) that if the submersivle that was sent down had sprung even the tiniest leak, water would come through so fast it would have torn throught the mens bodies, killing them instantly. And there are creatures LIVING down there...it's incredible. And we know next to nothing about them. Or rather, no human has ever even seen most of them before. Doesn't that stir something in you...?? The ocean is so terrifying and amazing...if i were smarter (and braver) i would go and explore it myself.
I am going to move to Ireland and live in a castle on a green hill with a beautiful garden by the water. I'll have goats and chickens...and grow my own vegetables. I'll learn how to play the violin. There will be no cell phones internet or tv...but i'll have lots of books and things to paint with and a mailbox a half mile away where i can send and recieve letters. I will have electricity, though, so i can listen to music and have light when it's dark. And plumbing...because i'm not that crazy.
If anyone wants to come visit me, just let me know! i'll have plenty of extra space, and a fireplace in every room! We can go on hikes and make berry pies and practise our accents. I'll let you all know my new address soon...allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. It takes a while for mail to get to castles.
nothing is simple...i wouldn't want it that way. i just wish some things didn't need to be so difficult. but i guess that's life.
i did a painting last night...so that's pretty cool.
Tuesday, August 8
Lord, i need your help. My abilities are so worthless and any strength i have so meaningless without you to guide it. I don't want to live only for my own gain...selfishly pursuing everything that i think will simply make me happy. But this world, this life, is not a happy place, and i'm not here to be happy. i'm here to discover that my only joy and purpose is found in you, Lord Jesus. I sit and wonder why i can't be producive, why i can't be outgoing, why i can't make myself better, and it's because i'm not asking you to help me. God, will i ever learn?
Lord you know what my desires are. You gave them to me. Actually, You know them a lot better than me right now...more than usual...because i don't even know what i want. Much less what i need. What am i willing to give up? i don't know that either. My art? My music? My "things"? As much as i seek your direction, i'm afraid of it, Lord. And yet i know that You have only the perfect plans laid out for me.
Jesus, may i desire you above all else. Above my longings, my materials and my flesh...
...and please grant me the ability to discern your voice from my own.
Is is hot or cold? Raining or Sunny? cloudy or clear...? make up your mind! i've had very strange dreams last couple of nights. Despite all my best efforts, I can only remember flashes of different scenes...
flash #1: i'm in a small room with windows all around out of which i can see i'm in a beautiful backyard. In my hand i have fake flowers. they look like carnations and they are faded colors of blue and orange and purple, and there is something i'm supposed to be doing with them. i keep looking at an old, gnarled tree just outside the window. there is someone with me but i don't remember who.
flash #2: i'm climbing up a hole in the ground with someone else and we come out on top in the middle of a dirt mound. There is grass all around and lots of people walking. I think there are some buildings too. I see a guy i know and i whisper to the girl who is with me to get down and not to let him see her.
flash #3: i'm in the cracks of doom fighting desperately with Gollum who is trying to stick a needle in me and shoot me full of some sort of lethal poison...i'm not kidding. i try to grab the syringe and it scratches my arm. the needle breaks off and i throw it down into the swirling flames of Orodruin. it sounds funny now, but it was scary as hell! Oh go ahead and laugh.
That's all i can remember as far as dreams are concerned.
My jaw is killing me. Today i had two fillings replaced, and while the dentist was drilling an oil well in my teeth i watched the Sound of Music in my head to distract me. I must have run through 16 going on 17 about 4 times. It actually worked pretty well! Now all the novacain has worn off and i feel like i've been suckerpunched. ooowww.
i leave for europe on tuesday...i'm majorly stressed out...there's so much i still have to do to get ready to go...and i can't even see straight! aagh!
