Site Update: Elfwood has published my new work, and though I know anyone who's here has seen it before, there is one sketch, the asiatic buffalo I've been sloooowly working on for my Minotaurs of the World series, that isn't on my site or linked to here. So take a look if you like. Comment if you want. Also, I now have a Deviant Art site. Pretty redundant, I know, but I figured if I had to become a member to comment on a few -other- artists, I might as well use the space they're throwing at me. What the hell, y'know? I suppose I'll add links in the appropriate places on my homepage and here when I get the time again. Actually getting forty hours this week starting tomorrow. Woohoo! Oh wait, that means no free time and staying over at my parents' house again. In proximity to my brother. ...damn.

Hecker Pass

The road to Mount Madonna is long and winding.
A two lane highway that wends past field and fence.
Once I break free from 101’s four wide rivers,
and the rustling eucalyptus wraps me in its scent,
then the open hills of horse farms close around me.
And the rows of vineyards ramble side to side.
I can dream again as life seems to find some ease,
and I'm on the way to where the white deer hide.

I drive on Mount Madonna mornings in the springtime.
When the sun plays catch as can past branch and leaves.
Where white stags joust and call their names in misty tones,
and wildflowers can be tasted on the cool, early breeze.
The peak of Mount Madonna in the hazy morning sun,
is wrapped alone in clouds seen as downy white.
A light rain falls only there, even as the fog is on the run,
the sloping flanks already warm with a clear sky's light.

I watch the variety of Mount Madonna mornings in the summer,
from behind the wheel of my car as I drive on by.
From when fog holds you close in blinding, soft, grey arms,
to when gold dapples earth and emerald gleams against azure sky.
Redwood and oak are the forest's crowning glory,
revealed in stages as mist takes turns hovering high and low.
And I remember why it is I love my homeland once again,
as just a little of the California beauty moves me so.

I look forward to Mount Madonna autumn,
when the leaves and acorns will fall in browning spray.
The park is the mountain’s heart, the white deer its spirit.
Cloud-pale stags and hinds dance the ancient, fallow way.
I will bring them wild acorns and the grass that they can’t reach.
I will admire the stags for power and fawns for youth.
I will feel the noses of the hinds soft as silk against my palm,
And in their boundless eyes try to read my truth.

I know that Mount Madonna can be dangerous in the winter,
when the wind and storm and rain all come to play.
The twisting road remembers a time before its paving,
and the mountain recalls its wilder bygone days.
The white deer can be as fractious as the season.
As dangerous with hoof and antler as a gale.
Remember that their taming is as passing as the moon,
which ambles freely among the stars, to sing the tale.

Brief update here. Mr. B got a new computer, and after much sweating and swearing and rearranging, I have it hooked up and such. I had taken the precaution of putting the necessities on a few floppies, so that I could transfer much of the stuff I needed or might want within the next month, and still keep it off the new comp. But... the new comp doesn't have an A: drive. -_- So I'm installing some of my stuff along with the stuff Mr. B wants, and I'll be functioning again. Sort of... it just means now I have to get used to this too, now, using unfamiliar programs as I am to try and do what I need. I suppose it's good practice, for when I'll finally get my own new computer... about ten years from now. Mrrf.

Site Update: New pic of Kaz by someone better than me at drawing! Much better. *beams* Thanks Sage!

Lots to talk about this time. Mr.B has gotten a new computer, so I had to hurry up and get my pics scanned and cleaned and colored, because mine will be moving out, and his will be getting hooked up. So of course, access to all my stuff will be inaccessable to me, though I'll still be able to put the basic necessecities on his machine until I move out. Besides, it was past time to get the pics out to their owners. Even so, if anyone wonders why I don't scan in my stuff more often? Let me give you the total of what it cost me this time. I'm not kidding when I say it costs me money to scan pics. Kinko's charges 40 cents per minute to use the computer with the scanner. I had roughly 30 pics to scan, some twice, because I was going to color a few or try to, and I had to scan the unshaded versions first, shade it, then rescan. Add to that, I had to resize all the pics to fit on a few disks, and flip them because the way the scanner was positioned meant I had to scan them all in upside down - sketchbook, y'know -  it wound up taking a bit over two hours. That time cost me $10 to leave my car in the parking garage, because there was absolutely no parking in the street. Total cost of scanning pics? $64.40. Ouch. I hadn't meant to stay that long. It was partly my own fault for losing track of time and just working on through. But there it is.

Move-out date: Has changed. Evidently I was mistaken, and in restrospect I'm not surprised. When I thought he said I had to be out by August 1st, he'd actually said the 31st. So I've got another month to go, and a good thing, considering the EDD is dragging their feet, my former employer VCA is trying to claim I voluntarily quit, and I've only managed to save about $500 total for the move as of yet, though now I'm at least debt-free.  Still don't know where I'll be moving to, Watsonville, CA or Oklahoma.
 

Site Update: Changed the page for pictures done of Kaz and some of my other characters by other artists to have thumbnails, and added two pictures by Tanamin and AceXCat, as well as a lost little pic of Kaz as a plushy. Go here to see.

Added new pictures to the Other Pics page, including fanart for Unicornography, a giraffe anthro, a fox anthro, and a picture of Travesty, my homicidal battle-bred character.

Added a whopping 15 pictures to the Minotaur Pics section, including fanart for Gaming Guardians, a gift for Brahma, a gift for Fluri-Mouse, requests for characters from the players of Zarx and Sasha, as well as pic of me from Further Confusion. 

There are frivolous bits of fun like the color version of a young Asterion, a sketch requested of an impossibility, a metal minotaur, and two random minotaurs looking cool.

There are also some more personal pictures, of me. I rarely draw Kaz for the simple reason that I have a hard time drawing the same thing twice. Actually, I can't do it at all, and when striving for character consistency, that really bites. This has been a rough enough time though, that I've actually on occasion over the past months, done what so many do, and vent through the pencil. Therefore, I also present Kaz1, Kaz2, Kaz3, Kaz4, and Kaz5.

No, I've not been a happy minotaur.

I'm away from home, at the moment. Or, well... I suppose depending on how you'd look at it, perhaps I'd be home. I'm over at my parents' house. They've been gone for the weekend, and got home just to go again in an overnight trip to Fresno, this time taking my brother with them, to do something or other at the college. Ah, yes. My brother, E.J., is heading off to Fresno State soon. I took the opportunity to sleep at the house since it's a half-hour closer to work. It saved me a little gas, at least. I had intended to go home tonight, but they asked me to stay and feed the animals. And bribed me with twenty bucks. So I agreed to stay another night. I would have without the offer of money, but let's face it, I need the twenty bucks, and being able to raid the fridge instead of buying food also has perks.

My brother and I can be like ships passing in the night, almost, barely saying greetings to each other. He gets me minotaur Magic cards, knowing I only want them for the art and will never learn to play, and I... well. I'm not sure what he gets out of associating with me, honestly. It's not like he particularly cares about the drawings that I show him, and we don't speak, really. Which is probably just as well. We're both too much like our father in different ways. No wonder all three of us really get on each others' nerves. I have no doubt that we all love each other, but I don't think we like each other very much.

Funny... in the strange sense, I mean. I found out E.J. has a livejournal, by accident really. Using my stepfather's computer to check my email and such, I ran across it when I meant to go to my own livejournal page to check on that story I have posted. It popped up as his, since he was logged in. No, I'm not going to give a link and subject you to it. He's 18. You just really don't want to go there. It makes me morbidly curious as to whether or not I was that angsty when I was his age. I don't think so, but one can never be sure without standing in someone else's place. He's got more to angst over, anyhow, simply because unlike me, he got interested in the opposite sex rather early. Also unlike me, he's a people person. He has many more friends than I ever did, and tends to, if not lead, than at least be right up there in front, involved where I only tended to participate merely because the momentum carried me along. If that. I am of the firm opinion that we were born in the wrong months. He was supposed to be the Leo, and I the Taurus. Not that I seriously believe in astrology, mind you, especially since I'm no leader and I don't like the spotlight, which Leos are supposed to crave. And come on, what self-respecting minotaur doesn't want to be a Taurus? ;)

I suppose I'm feeling... regretful. I wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else, by this point in my life. And I don't really have anything to show for it, for doing what I did instead of going to a four year, getting a degree. I wanted to be a veterinarian. Now I wonder if sometime I'll manage to squeeze in the few years needed to become a registered tech, work full time, and still be able to somewhat pursue artistic and literary endeavors. So far, just keeping a job and a place has proven beyond my capabilities. Doubts. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do what I wanted. If I'll ever graduate from college, and be the first woman in my family to do so. I never spoke about it, but that meant a lot to me.

Mreh. I know folks will roll their eyes, and snort, and call me a puppy - which I loathe - but I feel... old. I'll be twenty-eight this year. Two more until 30. Given that anything after 60 - if I make it that far - is probably not going to be all that enjoyable as the old body starts to give out, that's half my life frittered away, and nothing accomplished. There are better artists, there are better writers. Much better.

But I'd better stop, before I really get maudlin and melancholy.

All right, here we go. Let's see if I can actually recall what I wrote before, though it might seem a little incongruent in spots. My mood has plummeted from where it was when I wrote the original version. There's also a bit more new stuff, since the first draft.

It always surprises me to find people that read what I spill out onto these virtual pages. I know perhaps three people that do so, and I'm always astonished to find out that there just might be others out there taking a look. I'm even more surprised when someone I hadn't known read it nudges me for an update when I haven't posted anything for a while.

I tend to do things in spurts; writing, drawing, checking webcomics, updating my own site, catching up with the webpages of other people... a bad habit, really. You can bet I'm kicking myself, since after going through the latest round of catch-up, I've found I've missed the posting of some information I was drooling over and waiting for with anticipation, as well as the chance to win a picture drawn by the inestimable Kishma by not checking more regularly. I'm going to have to remedy that.

Yes, I am employed, which is a good thing. No matter what, it feels good to be working, and I've been paying off my debts, which is a great relief. I really hate owing people. My only consolation is that I always pay them back, though it might take a little time. Even so, the fact that I ended up -owing- in the first place... well... *sighs*

Anyhow. I'm working at Kmart. Hey, I said that the fact I was working was a good thing, not necessarily the job I was doing. I'm a door monitor of sorts. If the alarm goes off, it's my job to find out why, what set it off, and deactivate the tag on merchandise if it was somehow forgotten or missed (which most of the time, is exactly the case), or, if someone is trying to rip off something, stop them, of course. I check receipts too, and some people really, really don't like that. I'm always polite, of course, but yeesh, some folks take it personally. It's not even because of the people I ask, either, though that seems the common belief. I'm supposed to ask to see the receipt if they came from an area other than the checkouts, (meaning they usually paid at one of the other ones in the store, like in electronics or the garden shop) or if it's a large item, or something from electronics, or something you can open and put stuff in. So I stand in one place for eight hours, basically hoping the alarm goes off so I have something to do other than think about my aching feet. Is it just me, or do I keep getting jobs that are worse and worse, and pay less and less? Seven and a quarter an hour. That's what I make. With gas as high as it is, as you can imagine, the hour commute each way takes a nice big chunk out of it. Oh, I have actually caught people trying to steal stuff. Busted one woman for trying to get out of the store with over $130 worth of jeans (that's six)hidden in a plastic bin she'd bought. I found three such bins stuffed with clothes, shoes, electronics, and assorted odd stuff - like hair gel - hidden behind the garden shop. Probably a thousand dollars worth of stuff, easily. Inside job, that. But I dunno what came of it. It got handed to the higher ups to investigate. And of course, some I don't catch. I had a runner the other day. Fast sonuva... he got away, I don't know with what, and I never saw his face. S'how it goes, I guess.

Still fighting every step of the way with the EDD for money. Now they're claiming I quit a job I worked with some company called Vicar Operations or some such. The only problem is, I never worked there, and certainly never quit. So while I'm arguing this, of course, my money is held up. Money I -need- so I can get a move on... well, on my moving plans. No pun intended.

I have to get out of here by August 1st. The problem, all the way, has been the pet situation. Nobody effin' lets you have big dogs. I've narrowed it down to two possibilities. I'll either be getting a roomie in Watsonville, where I work, in some low-income housing, (provided they allow a cat and a dog that's over 60 pounds, which is evidently like asking someone for their firstborn) or I'll be moving to Oklahoma. The minimum wage is about the same as I'm making now, and the cost of living is much lower. I could afford to live on a similar salary.

I've begun my packing, at least.