The moment

I begin to feel as though I have human relationships figured out, that I can just be, without hindrance, it all just kind of blows up in my face, and I'm stuck here again, in second place.
... Bollocks.

"Get me to the church on tiiiiiiiime"

All within the past ... I'd say two months, I've found out a multitude of friends, current and past, are all getting married.
Pheromones, anyone?
That or they're having children all at once, and I find myself in a time where no, I wouldn't be able to support a child currently, but the idea that I wouldn't be able to have one in the future lays heavily on my shoulders. Pictured here is probably one of my best friends in the world, Eric. He's marrying a wonderful girl and I couldn't be happier for the two of them.
I've been cutting ties with people close to me, not really on purpose, but because I feel like I know where this is going, and what can happen if I don't pull up from this downward spiral.
My surgery date is set and will hopefully alleviate some of this funk I've been in.

Passing notion, and I promise, it is only a fleeting recollection:
On the first day of our senior English class, the teacher alluded to a weird statistic: suicides happen more frequently in the spring than they do on holidays. When we asked why, he said that spring always means the promise of change, and that the lack thereof, is heartbreaking.

Jumping on the bandwagon, I suppose.

Let me make this very clear.
I am PRO-Gay Marriage. I am PRO-Equal Rights. They're/I'm not trying to marry you. Get over it.

No, I'm not going to shove my beliefs down your throat, honestly. And don't worry, you're safe from me trying to sit you down to watch "Brokeback Mountain" or "Sex and the City".
I don't approve of stupidity or ignorance, but I do approve of people's right to express their opinions, even if I don't agree with them. This little Satan-loving liberal does believe that you should be able to express yourself no matter what. Miss California in all of her, let's be generous and say "WISDOM", decided to answer as she saw fit. For a BEAUTY pageant. Hardly the platform for morally upstanding citizens, wouldn't you say? And speaking of platforms, I would like her to step down off of her high horse and stop comparing her entrance into a contest to her grandfather fighting the Battle of the Bulge with General Patton. Your grandfather serving his country and you prancing around in a crocheted white bikini are not the same sacrifices.
If I can say anything, let it be to the press: Please stop fueling her fire. She thinks this publicity is somehow a punishment, and she's just being egged on. And Donald Trump, king of all combovers (or comb FORWARDS I suppose), isn't helping.
Care to disagree? Fine. Tell me that Carie whatsherface is the new prophet, and I'll show you a broad in a white bikini.
Cheers,
c.i.

I almost love this town when I'm by your side

At twenty-two, I didn't expect to have deal with the problems of my own fertility, or lack thereof at this point. I've got bum parts and no instructions, ha. Also, let it be noted that going and getting blitzed out of your mind is no way to deal with these issues (as I did last night, oi vey), but I got overwhelmed being surrounded by children, babies, and pregnant women. They all seemed to flock to one spot (no, not the bar), and I couldn't escape my emo self.
I did this drawing about three years ago from a borrowed anatomy book. A lot of my earlier work has been based off of anatomy because of my family's long genetic history of having bum parts (be it the heart, ovaries, skeletal structure, etc.), and their various ways of dealing with them.
I've kind of tried going forth with my life and trying to function, but it kind of sucks when it feels like there's a tiny gremlin in your pelvis trying to remove your ovaries with a broken spork.
More embarrassing details to come, and hopefully some more art.
Cheers,
c.i.

Preference

I would much rather prefer that I was updating this with some kind of regularity other than just me bitching and moaning, and creating a noise in the spectrum of your mind that didn't resemble Lucille Ball's "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH".
I've been having health problems (hopefully solved soon), love interests gone south (always some kind of blundering through), blah blah blah. What I really should be bitching about is having to go all the way back to Oakland to scan in my newly finished comic page, or hell, finding a job to PAY for a high quality scanner.
... I have no desire to wake up in 8 hours.
The following video describes my exact thoughts, and I encourage you to catch it's midnight screening at the Landmark Theaters on Linda & Piedmont Ave on May 8th and 9th.

Wingnut Presents

Sneak preview of what the cover of my comic will look like. This is more or less dicking around with the various contact paper that I "inherited". I am eternally grateful to my friend Russell.
I may end up using a different "model" for the role of "Aly Sinn", but I would need to get a hold of a couple of different people and get some stock photos of them.
I've also started a separate page for Christine Juniper
I've become so content with it, I will be including this as a title page/disclaimer. I don't think I could've done this project, or even started it really without the help of her, Russell and a few others.
And to you, I say thank you. I hope you're happy with the result.
More updates on the art later.
Cheers.

A diversion of sorts

Beware my attempts at poetry.
I wrote this back during the winter for my father (psychosis, much?)

I.
I married my wife and not my children; question for tree:
does pollen belong to the flower, to the roots

roots to the soil?

II.
Fermented vine of delayed fruition
eight years long, vintage fifty-six - this coming harvest

moon.
III.
I will not beckon with hardened fingers, bend and
bind O Root, come home.
Veins never bound --- why start now?
IV.
I did not marry my children, green & budding writhing
upward trusting into darkness the life and

the shame of gray bodies.

© Caitlin Interruption

OG

The original Zombie.
Happy Easter.

Lucky duck

I somehow got lucky enough to have inherited Marshall Rogers' quill, pen and ink collection, along with drafting papers and a bunch of other wonderful and amazing things that I haven't even begun to paw my way through. I befriended his stepson through the 24 hour cafe here in Fremont, and when we struck up the conversation about comics, he invited me over to his apartment, which apparently was once also belonging to Rogers. The stepson was excited to get some extra room, and is a good friend.
So, as I am, I'm starting from square one, but I'm well armed.
I'll scan in some sketches later in the week.

Notalice

Sooo happy I finally got this scanned. I am very proud of this painting.

In support of another Bay Area artist ... oooh lordy.

I'm bereft of words. I have been following the work of Alex Pardee for the past 5 years or so, since high school basically. He's better known for his grotesque portraits, blood-thirsty Smurfs and other nightmarish creatures that really just want to love. Or eat your face. Probably the latter.
But, the video is amazing, and so is the look on Shia LeBeouf's face.

Rock Lobster

I'm somewhat excited. Somehow through my ramblings, wikimetro wants to feature on my blog, saying that as far as Oakland, I have been viewed 14 times in a week. To which I must say ...
Where art thou, you lurkers?! Or is my shameless self-promotion working. Yes? I hope so.

Well, if this is really "the big time", let me first explain something: I never really wanted to leave Oakland, I honestly love it. I'm not quite sure that it was because I didn't grow up in Oakland, or that it was "anywhere but here", but I grew to fall in love with it. From Alameda to Emeryville, I felt seamless and fluid in the back alleys and dive bars.
I named this little project "Leaving Oakland or Lackthereof" because I was originally conspiring to use the last of my school loan money (whoops) to take a train out to Plymouth, Michigan to interview my supposedly dying grandmother. This woman was the first of my mother's side of the family to take a great risk, and almost unrepentedly regret it to the point where she has the remains of my grandfather in a can at the funeral home where he's been for the past ... 18 years.
Life is what happens when you're busy making plans, and yes, I ran out of that money. I also ran out of money to live on my own, sadly, and I had to leave my beloved Oakland.
I've been back in Newark (the sphincter in the Asshole that is Fremont, end of the BART line, and the bane of my existence more or less) for the past two months, give or take. Rediscovered a few truths:

1. It is damn near impossible to get around here (Fremont, Newark, Union City, Hayward) without a car
2. Almost nothing is open past midnight, save for Bay Street Coffee Company, bless your little octane hearts
3. Ignorance is more or less bliss, or at least refused me service at a See's Candies on Valentine's Day. I shit you not.
4. The heavier the woman, the tighter the clothes. Though I discovered that in Oakland and found that it drifted it's sweet Spandex self down to the good ol' Tri City Area

Also ... let it be stated for the record, that I am inconceivably, horribly and painstakingly AWKWARD when I'm attracted to someone.
I grew up with the old anecdote "looks aren't all that matters, personality counts too!" (I should find a picture of me with Groucho Marx eyebrows and braces ... they do exist!) when really ... no, personality didn't ever really enter into it, at least not early on, and when I ended up "like liking" someone. Low self-esteem gives one a strange sense of self-degrading humor, so apparently being a quasi-cute sarcastic comic nerd art school drop out is a hot commodity?
But I'm still opertaing on full social retardation upon someone actually showing interest, to the point of raising eyebrows.
My intentions are good, if not cheesy.

The goal for tonight: sleep without night terrors.
Cheers, fuckwits, you are loved by one awkward twat.

A Twitter for the Twat ... what?

I apparently have joined the "final frontier" of realtime updating and got a Twitter
I guess if I'm really serious about this networking and getting anything of mine off the ground, I'd better start kissing some twittering ass.

Scanning of the start of a possible screenprinting project may be in the works, hopefully with the careful guidance of a Paul Barron, whom you should check out anyway because he's awesome.

Continuing in the mollusk direction ... why, you may ask. Finally figured out my obsession: I will never ever be able to reach the depths of the sea at which these creatures can survive because of my ears (eardrums ruptured at age 4, any more pressure than just flying in an airplane gives me vertigo and immense pain), and I can't stand to be away from the ocean or water. We're biologically similar and it also gives a strange sense of the "uncanny" because they tend to resemble parts of ourselves (genitalia, limbs, etc.), somewhat in the same arena as zombies creep us out (living but dead) or prosthetic limbs. And yes, I am more or less quoting Mr. Eric Olson, whom was mentioned in an earlier post. At least some of what I learned in school is sticking and being applied, despite that it was, yes, art school.

Going back to sleep, despite the two cups of coffee.

If you really love me, let me eat your brains ...
♥
Caitlin

Thanks Christine Juniper

This seems to be an older clip, but this man says what I've been screaming for the past few months more eloquently than I ever could.

Promotion of One I'm Happy to Call

A total creep that also shares my last name, and a friend:

Eric Olson - Procession of Mollusks

And for pretty much every reason that Eric Olson has listed as far as his choice of animal to use in his novel.

Dilemma

When is artistic license allowed to take over an idea, or a story?
I was told a story about a man who discovered his mother wasn't who he thought she was. She had done atrocious monstrous things, and she passed on not too long ago. The son is a friend of a friend.
I haven't met this man, and apparently she was rather famous, and was supposed to have died after the war.
Do I take it upon myself to tell this story, or should I just let it rest in peace. And if I do that, who's memory am I disgracing by not telling this story? Hers? The son's? Or the people she killed?

Death of a Swordswallower

This is pretty much every art critique I've ever had.
And also how I feel people will interpret the next poem.

In our avoidance, sharing that
same tide that eddied and
flowed through the hallways
Before the light rushed
Breathe in

Bad habits and genetics pouring from
sleepy skin, large unwashed ears
The cure cost me all but
two locks of hair twisting upward
and your bottle of cheap brandy Breathe
Out

Alone you pluck the same song
Head cradled on a block of cedar breath
Stricken, leave me some navigation,
And wait for the Sans Hecate's lovechild
Turn

Great hairy knuckles, Batman! How did I not KNOW of this wonderous thing?!

<3

I am in love.

Jive turkey, Jive.

I didn't realize when I started to draw this turkey, that he has a unicorn horn. Go mythical turkey, GO!

There is relevance in my madness, really. 

... you shall see. 

And now for something completely different

Escaped the WetLands of SphincterVille and I come to you now, live (or at least mobile and deceased) from Oaktizzle. Pirating technology and running into schoolmates. Original intent was to change out a piercing, but that doesn't seem financially sensible (and driving all the way up to Oakland in the pouring rain to scan art is?)

It makes me laugh that even when I come to the school I've been at for the past three years, I've changed to the point where some can't recognize me.

And I won't be the one to bring it to their attention.

Feeling Inadequate (Hey Look! I Can Draw!)

I need to find my damned chord to my camera to upload more art.

Friday the 13th, monsoons, and a new project

The art show that my friend Carter and I were scheduled for was a bust. The scheduling got mixed up apparently, and we aren't showing currently. Stuck in traffic I thought about a random fact about turkeys.

Wild turkeys drown when it rains and they look up. 

"You were in a dark patch, and you lost your hair ..."

I believe that's a line from a Beatles' song, "Don't Pass Me By". 

What I find to be symbolic is the fact that I named this blog originally "Leaving Oakland or Lack Thereof". When I meant leaving Oakland, it was only to try to get out to the other side of the country to see my dying grandmother (who is still around, actually) and record some of the stories that she has from the war, of my grandfather and my mother's childhood. I never was able to, and had to stop going to school and, in the past few weeks, eventually leave Oakland altogether. This past week has been the only downtime I've had in almost a year, save the two times that my father ended up in the hospital. 

My kittens have head colds, and have gotten used to my family's 109 lb. black lab named Moose. 

I have plenty of things to scan to be posted here, but they will wait for a "decent" hour.

Cheers.