I was coming home today listening to an old David BowieCD. He was singing Glass Spider.
There´s something really sad about that song. The baby spiders left alone, thinking that the river might love them more than their mother did (If momma don´t love you / The river then might...), when it´s actualy going to cause their death. Still, they chant shortly afterwards: Mommy come back ´cause the water´s all gone. Has the river also left them? Are they completely alone, with no solace but themselves?

The weather has become progressively cold. And it has caused a sort of a setback on my phase shift. Yep... I think I might be returning earlier to a clear phase. This cold weather inspires a need for comfort. For cuddling with someone. And my tight black clothes aren´t enough for this cold.
Some darkness still lingers in me. I´ve been seeing the works of Otto Dix: etchings about the horrors of First World War. And it seemed most interesting. The raw darkness of that horror. The contrast mostly. Contrast of black and white.
Still, the winter is a time of introspection, as I´ve written earlier. But it took a different undertone this time. In other years, when Marcus was around, I attended to parties, alone most of the time, and watched the people, thought about their lives and my own. But this time, in part because of the sickness, I´ve been indisposed, or unwilling to attend to parties. Mayhaps I´m beggining to see the pointlessness of them. But I´ve though about life. In reclusion, isolated, but thinking about existence itself. I´m still a strong existencialist. That, I guess, will only change when I´m old and closer to natural death. It´s a time when we seek to delude ourselves. To believe in an afterlife because the end is near.

There... I feel better now.

I wrote the last post a few days ago actually. But I had to warn a few people before publishing it so they wouldn´t think I was about to jump out the window or something. I just got scared one of these nights about thinking of it seriously for the first time. It´s the sickness. It´s driving me mad. But ever since I wrote this, it´s been fading. It still bothers me a lot. But the agony is much lighter now... I´m recovering.

I just had to post this. It´s a sort of a cry for help...

The sickness, this monster in me, has evolved somehow. It used to manifest itself only on certain specific situations. But now it has managed to leak into my common life. In my routine, it suddenly happens. And I start feeling sick as hell. Sick to my stomach. I can´t stand to have anything on my neck or on my stomach. Let alone in my stomach: I´ve been eating less.

Let me try to explain this better. It may seem to you as a hypocondriac´s lament if I don´t.
I´ve never felt more flesh and bone than right now. It´s being aware that your are an organic body. And as an organic body, you sense things. But your nerves are so sensible somehow that every stimulus hits you ten-fold. Imagine having every tough situation multiplied by ten. Standing every anxiety ten times. I hold on tight not to burst: people look at me and my body is always tense, embracing itself, holding on to something, biting down on something.
And what will happen if I do burst?
I´m not sure. When this sickness hit me before, I always thought that if I didn´t hold on tight, I´d throw up or something. And it would really make a mess and I´d be embarrassed. But it´s entirely different now and much worse: the simple fact of being an organic body and having all these thousands of stimuli each second is so completely umbearable! I want the hurting to stop... The cold, the heat. Everything. For once, I´d like to feel numb.

I guess it´s not the stimulus that comes to me ten-fold, it´s my tolerance that has dropped to drastic levels. We each have different levels of tolerance for each kind of aspect on our lives. How much bulsh*t can you take from other people? How many cuts and bruises can you stand before kneeling? How many dishonorable acts can you commit before you start feeling guilty? How much inner psychological pain can you stand before giving an end to your life?

Can you grasp how easy it is, under these circumstances, to think of suicide? But I´ve debated this thoroughly with the Council before (and once again last night...). Being a rational way out, Marcus seems to be all over it. But he has been discredited ever since last year happened. All other Council members have voted against it. So I stand and wait. And hope my psychologist can do something about this...

Life is such a pain...

Yesterday I delivered one of my reports I´ve been writting.
It was for acourse on research methodology. We had to turn in a research project. At first, i couldn´t give a rat´s crappy ass (quoted from tj.hanton.net) about it. There didn´t seem to be anything I was interested in researching. Plus, research in the field of comunication seems something so abstract. How can you quantify your results? How can you actually prove your hypothesis? It´s comunication, for crying out loud! It´s words and people´s comprehension. It can be pretty tough to monitor.
But then, a very interesting topic came along. In fact, it had been at my side all the time: the art course! Specifically, the teaching of technique. I´ve in the third year of the art course (one more to go!!) and still no one has taught me sculpture. And I´ve had a whole year of sculpture class!! What do they teach instead? Some of that mixed media crap, public interventions... but not a glimpse of traditional sculpture. I haven´t touched a chisel yet! And my beloved painting: we´ve learned that oils exist. And that´s it. Perhaps the only real technique my teacher ever taught me was something with transparencies. I was expecting something like what Makel had learned in the atelier. Also, I´ve read in books about painting that I should use some sort of varnish after the painting is complete (that´s where vernissage comes from, by the way...), so that it would endure longer. But no mention of it has been made in the art course. I bet my paintings wouldn´t last more than fifty years.
The whole point of my research was to prove this deficiency. To prove that, after the advent of modernism, specifically of movements like dadaism and artists like Marcel Duchamp and his ready mades, traditional art has been neglected. Paintings matter no more. Nor does traditional sculpture.
So I proposed, as research, the creation of a test, to be ministered to the graduate students of the finest art schools in the city, to check their knowledge of the correct procedures for traditional forms of art. And a further evaluation of their artworks in the traditional languages.

You might say: "why insist on traditional art methods, when new forms of art are upon us?"
I´ll reply: "Hittler lost the war against the russians because he did not know the past. Napoleon lost the same war centuries before. You must know the past to understand and evolve the present."
And plus, what about art students who like the traditional methods? Are we forced into contemporary art?

I´ve heard... read actually, that my Lioness has found someone.
And I´m not quite sure what to feel. I mean, I´ve always said and known that my love for her was completely friendly. That, even though she is quite a girl, she´s not exactly what I´m looking for. Love did not strike. Then why is it that it bothers me somehow?
Oh, I know exactly why. It´s a guy thing. And that´s obviously going to be yet another reason for people ( girls, actually...) to hate me. When I finally lost Makel once and for all, I felt something similar. And I didn´t understand it ´till I went to a party with one of Sati´s friends. And my intentions were to be with her that night. But in the first few minutes, for many reasons, I found out it would never happen. Still, that night, another guy started to talk to her. And my heart ached at the thought of loosing two girls in the same week. I´d be drawn to maddness if it happened.

"Loosing two girls"?

When did I ever have Sati´s friend? The thing is, my mind was set on it. As if she had been mine. It hurt me so to see Makel kiss someone else because, even though I had denied her, she was still mine to me. And I guess it dismally bothers me in this case for the same reason.
And plus, I´m loosing someone who really loves me. And everyone wants to be loved.But that´s the exact same reason Things started with Makel...
But I´ve had enough of hurting my Lioness. Simply being with her is hurting her. Once every week I say or write something I wasn´t meant to and I hurt her somehow. She´ll never understand me. Heck, does anybody? Enough of hurting her. That´s why I´ve been encouraging her to take action with this new person in her life (despite all the misunderstanding and hurt it is causing her...). She might set herself free.

She might once again look in the mirror and find herself atractive.

Not again...

I have become viced in yet another computer game. This time it´s GTA (Grand Theft Auto). I´m not going to rest untill I clear the darned first stage: I´m supposed to get 1000000 points. I´ve reached 960000 so far... But the thing is, it´s getting in the way of my papers for the end of the semester. I´ve been wasting time playing the game instead of doing my work...

Discipline, Pan! Discipline!

Very soon I´ll have my next painting. Nothing too fancy. I´m still working on my Virgin and parthenogenic Child and I have no prospects about when I´ll finish it. But as a side project, I´m doing that simple portrait of my Blonde Muse that I talked about a long time ago. And It´s going pretty well. It´s almost done. I just need to paint the lips: I saved the best for last... It´s apt to become my latest favourite, taking the place of Mariana, that has remained number one for the last year or so. I have a thing for portraits. Specially girls´ portraits. Too bad one can´t seem to make a living out of them. Otherwise it would be a very happy life.

I forgot to mention that my Hyperactive friend, Alex, has a new girlfriend!
Remember I mentioned a blonde the night I met Amber Eyes (by the way, I wonder where is she...)? Well, Alex liked her so much that they are dating. She has some distant resemblance to Buffy. But then again, I´m always noticing the most improbable likenesses.
Alex and Buffy get along just fine. It´s been so long since I´ve seen him so joyous, despite all the family problems.

*SIGH*

I wonder how long ´till I´m that happy again...

More sifting through the mess in my bedroom.
I found a twig of urucum. A plant much used by brazilian indians for their tribal body paint. The seeds, when squashed, give out a red, non-toxic paint.
In my personal culture, that bunddle of little things that mean very specific thing to me only, urucum is the plant that symbolizes death.
The urucum twig I found in my bedroom was taken from the flowers left at my cousin´s grave. I took it when I left a watercolour for him. It was over a month ago when I went to take pictures for my photographic ghosts. I left the watercolour and took the twig. My hopes were that the watercolour would decompose, as the flowers would. As he would. And somewhere in the middle they´d meet. My cousin and my offering. Now I´m left with the twig. And those seeds that give off a brightly red paint. Too artificial to be compared with blood. Too bright. But the analogy has been made. And urucum now symbolizes death.

While going through the mess in my bedroom, I came upon something I had written when I went to see a play with the Lioness some time ago:

THINK ABOUT THIS:
Ina world where everyone is suffering lives that went wrong and no one claims to be mentaly stable, you are charged with enough negative energy to rebel against your own life. But what if there´s nothing wrong? Nothing to rebel against? What if you ultimately live a rather perfect life?

I lead a rather perfect life. My family has no great money issues, being able to afford art courses for me. We get along nicely, even though we rarely have conversations that last over five minutes. Come to think of it, I believe that´s exactly why we get along. All other families that get too intimate end up quarreling. I have a good perspective of my future: good enough to avoid fears and depression. I´m healthy despite a some psychological balderdash. I study what I like and believe I´m talented at what I do (if there is such a thing as innate talent...). I live in a comfortable home that is always there for me at the end of the day. I eat relatively healthy meals and I eat enough.
Then how do I discharge all the negative energy the world throws at me every day? How can I feel kin to a world of broken homes and torturing lives when my own life is so good? I want to rebel. I don´t want to be a foreigner anymore. I want to be another voice in the chorus. But there seems to be no reason for that.

All I can say is...

Thank God.

Ever since teenage started, I've been having this annoying psychological problem. Certain situations can make us rather nervous. New situations like going to places you've never been or meeting new people. Gosh, I sound like a geek... Well, the thing is, certain situations that I still can't define cause this sickness to my stomach. It's purely psychologic. But once it starts, I keep asking myself "How am I feeling? Am I alright? Can I go on?". Obviously, the more I ask, the worse I get, but I just can't seem to stop checking my status. I've fought it bravely, never letting it become a reason for me not to do things.
My grandmother has this, and she's had this ever since childhood. Mom had it to, but eventually it faded.
Almost a year ago, I turned to a psychologist for help. And it seemed to have passed after a few months of treatment. I went to the beach with the Lioness, for example, to stay at a place I had never been to. And further on the same weekend, I had dinner with her parents, whom I had never met. Two situations that usually caused this thing. And nothing had happened.
But now it returns, to claim a victim it had lost.

But maybe I'm being too drastic. Perhaps this is just a common sickness out of something I ate yesterday or the day before...

Last few classes in the art course.
Today I found myself opening my scketch pad and drawing a few things. It was a feminine figure. A round face, smooth like a geisha´s. Closed eyes seemed oriental, but that wasn´t my intent. It´s just that I can´t seem to draw those eyes out of memory. And in the snapshot in my head, she has her eyes closed. Or maybe she´s looking down. I can´t remember for sure.
When drawing portraits, milimeters make a hell of a difference. I tried to draw her face again, but it keeps getting harder and harder to get the same results.
That damned mouth!! I know mouths are hard to draw because they define a person so much, but this is really getting out of hand!
The rest goes smoothly. She has a style to her body that can be pretty easy to picture. And that large neck, so tempting for vampires... Loose, limp clothing. I still need to draw her hand better though... But that´s another thing that just can´t be done out of memory...

Things that I learned from her (no, not my teacher...):
-How cheap were some people and artworks
-The use of the word cheap
-The development of girls' breast over teenage
-The way girls are either princesses or lionesses
-And that most lionesses (if not all of them...) eventually wish they were princesses when the time comes to chose a partner for life.
-That power over men will not actually get you any men.
-I learned to accept some more of my evil
-And that some people will accept my evil as well
-I learned that I have an urge to let people breach my AT Field
-And that I'm immensely hesitant in breaching other people's AT Field
-I learned of the existence of some portuguese desserts that I had never heard of
-I learned that the problem wasn't me, it was actually Makel
-That we sometimes apply the perfect strategy without knowing it.
-I learned to play I've never...
-And I had my first hang over in doing so
-I learned that there are people who actually do like the rain
-And people who simply find the whole concept of liking the rain so romantic that they pretend they do.
-I learned that there´s a rational rage and a passional rage. I´m rational. Unfortunately, she´s passional.
-I learned that we fight out of love sometimes.
-I learned how good it is to leave little quarrels unresolved and simply forget about the whole thing

I wish I could write a hundred little things...
But we´ve only known each other for four or five months...

One of the courses in the university ended today. Our teacher organized a small party. We brought stuff to chew while we discussed the works of the last class. And we agreed that each of us would give someone else a gift this class. It had to be one of our own works. Guess who picked me?
My teacher gave me a hand-made book with a whole bunch of her drawings. They have a very characteristic line, just as most drawings do, and a dream-like aspect. Extremely simple, yet completely enchanting. Their simplicity is rather disturbing actually, rather obscure. But since I thrive on these disturbing things, I simply adored it. I looked at it for hours, with a huge smile on my face. Along with it came a notebook. White pages. She knows I make notes of my ideas and philosophies. On the first page, I wrote: This one was given to me by my teacher: artist Sandra Cinto. And I just can´t wait to finish my current notebook to start this one! It´ll give me some extra inspiration.