In the Dark

I'm so tired of being SICK! It's been over a month now and it's wearing on me. I'm tired of the grumpy indigo-ness that comes with being sick for so long. So when Kelly called and tried to get me to art, I did even though I didn't wanna! This is my "In the Dark" journal, the perfect place to work when I'm feeling like this.

Blah. AND today is You Suck Monday and I won't be there because I have class tonight. I know they don't need me there, but it's a little bit sad to know that you can be the co-founder of something and it can carry on completely without you. You are totally expendable. It makes me sad. Nine more weeks and maybe I'll have class on different nights. I think I'd like more of a MWF kind of thing. Or, even better, I'd like to have ALL the classes in ONE day. 13.5 hours of school all at once, then just studying and reading and homework for the rest of the week. I'm already frazzled because I still have three assignments to do for this week - and I've already done two that are due this week and started on one that's due next week. School is stressful!

More CTJ

I've been kind of struggling with journaling for the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure why, but I'm determined not to give in to the urge to stop. I know if I do, I'm going to slip down into that horrible vat of Indigo and I don't want that. I'm determined to fight it any way I can, and for some reason these pages help me.

Doodling those cirlces and making them gray & white - helps. Adding a wash of expensive yellow paint in my 40 cent journal - helps.

Quinacridone magenta - ALWAYS helps. Doodling lips inside a heart - helps.

I put on tape. I made white dots. In the big scheme of things - I did nothing today. Didn't save the world. Didn't help anyone. No grocery shopping, no laundry. Does that mean my day was a waste? I read a book. Took a bath. Picked up dinner for my family at Wendy's. And I painted a little in my journal. Maybe a waste to some, but I'll go to bed tonight feeling not quite Indigo, and sometimes that's the best we get.

New tiny journal

I'm not usually a fan of working too small or too large. My ideal journal size is 7 by 10. This one is 4 by 5 and it's hopefully going to be for journaling during the dark times. The Indigo times. The times where I just wanna lay on the couch and watch Bones for three days and you can't stop me or make me brush my teeth.

One of the keys to getting out of these times is action. Take a shower. Call a friend. Leave the house. But you'd be amazed my how much better you can feel just by picking up the pencil and drawing something. Or grabbing a pen and jotting crap down in your CTJ. (What? You don't have a CTJ? Get your ass to Wal-Mart, composition notebooks are on sale for 40 cents!) 

It's not easy to draw pretty things when your thoughts and emotions aren't pretty. And you know what? I don't have to. I don't have to pretend in any of my journals, ever. BUT. This one is going to be specifically for the times I don't feel like making art. Journaling. Whatever. When my arms are too heavy to move and my thoughts are too heavy in my head.

Being Empty

I guess mostly what I talk about here is silly stuff. Markers and bees and Mini Me. But today Suzi's blog post made me cry and so I'm going to talk about it. This is me: My name is Ariana, but my friends call me Goog. Except for one, who calls me Ana (pronounced anne-uh, not on-uh) which is what I would really like to be called. I like Star Wars and Star Trek, Harry Potter and Twilight. I read a lot, but not magazines. I have no interest in pop culture or television shows. I don't watch whatever TV show you think is amazing and I don't care how amazing you think it is. I have no idea what the temperature is here today. I love lime green and I don't wear matching socks. I have paint spattered on most of my clothes. I don't brush my hair and I don't own a blow dryer. I am a mom to a three-year-old who only eats crackers and chicken nuggets. I don't sleep well. I like sparkly pens and I hate staying at home.

But here is the thing I need you to know: I don't know how to judge you. THIS is why I never fit in in school. This is why I don't fit in now. I don't GET it. I don't LOOK at someone and think "Oh, they're hot." because I don't KNOW you. I'm not attracted to someone that I know nothing about. Not even physically. I just don't get it. I don't look at someone and see "ugly" or "pretty". I don't think you look different with your makeup off. I can't tell if you spent an hour or five minutes on your hair. It hurts me to admit this because I know you don't believe me. I DON'T understand HOW to judge people that way. I don't get it. I have blue eyes and dark blond hair (it's brownish-black right now). I have big teeth and even though I'm 30 I still have acne. I don't wear makeup. Ever. I don't even know how to put it on. WHY DO YOU CARE? My clothes probably don't match, I can't tell. I don't look in a mirror except while I'm brushing my teeth. Not because I don't like my reflection, just because it doesn't occur to me that I should care what I look like. Don't I always look the same? I don't iron any clothes, I wear jeans and t-shirts everyday. Right now I'm wearing a pair of black workout pants and a Thing 2 hoodie. My feet are bare and my hair is wet. But what does that have to DO with anything? I buy all my clothes at Target - Old Navy if the sale is REALLY good. All my sneakers have holes in them where my feet bend because I walk for miles and miles. I like country music. I bite my nails and want a tattoo. I'm not afraid of getting old. I love my son, and I don't think cupcakes are a "special occasion" food.

I hate when people say "I wish I could be more like you". I didn't have to learn to NOT judge people. I didn't have to learn to NOT care how I look, to NOT wear makeup, to NOT need designer clothes. It's all part of what makes me a freak. "Different" or "special". I have NEVER tried to "stand out" - I just STICK out. I don't WANT to. I've always been the person in class whose name the teacher knew first. If I walk into my apartment complex office, they know my name, hubby's, Mini's, my building AND apartment number. They know I'm an artist and hubby's a chef, and they've known all of this pretty much since we moved in. I don't know what makes me look people in the eye and make sure to hand the cashier my money instead of tossing it on the counter.

I'm so tired right now. Physically, mentally, just tired. I wish I understood. I wish I had the "judgement" gene, too. That way I could understand what's wrong with me. Today Indigo is winning the fight. Why do I let him? Sometimes it's just easier to just pull the Indigo cloak around me and huddle under it. Glare at people at the grocery store from under the cover of my iPod. They take one look at my earphones and grungy clothes and write me off as no-good. Maybe they're right.

Components of a grown-up play date:

Fudge

Pooping cake balls

Honestly, I don't know what happened to them. Tim said that if the middles were warm, the chocolate might bust open and goo would leak out, but they were fresh out of the freezer. (OK, we set one tray outside. It was 22 degrees!) They were nice and chilly before I dunked them and this has never happened before. Every single one either leaked out a little hole like this or got a huge crack. Very odd.

White wine

Banishing Indigo

Today, Indigo (our archenemy) was smashed in the face by a cake ball. Delicious and effective.

The Indigo Project

Flat Stanley gave me this idea. I blogged a few days ago about Indigo, my archenemy and the archenemy of several of my friends. So here he is. Indigo. It's not my exact vision of him, but I was having trouble drawing him, so I'm using this image from a Manga disc I have.

I colored him shades of blue.

Laminated him.

Now, the idea with the Indigo Project is that we're going to take Indigo and take pictures with him, just like I did with Stanley. Only for Indigo, he's not going on an adventure. The pics are going to be about beating him. We're going to squash him under things and throw things at him and drown him in margaritas. Whatever we have to do to get rid of Indigo.

Oh, the image is royalty-free, just in case you were wondering. :)