Tattoo!!

So yesterday was my birthday, and I got a freakin' tattoo! I've been wanting it for a while now, and I decided it was time. I went to Xavier Darling (who really is quite darling; I loved him immediately) at Black Hole. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it was going to. I didn't cry or faint; my hands got clammy but that was it.

The scene.

The stencil.

The process. (The ink was a mix of deep red, light brown, and black, and the stencil was purple. This combination of factors made the process look much gorier than it was. No worries. :) )

The final product.

Damn straight, small but mighty.

Get out the time machine...

You know how sometimes people ask silly questions like "if you could go back to any point in your life but retain the knowledge you have now, what would you do"?

I was thinking about that tonight.

I would go back to 15. I started dating when I was 15, and that's when everything went wrong.

This probably won't make sense to people who don't know me very well, but I bet you can get the gist:

I would go back and tell 15 year old me that even though I'm allowed to date now, I should wait until I find a quality guy rather than dating the first guy that would have me. I would say, "Pay attention to your feelings. You hate Travis. Don't date him! Wait for Jonas. He's sweet."

Then when dating Jonas, I would tell myself to not break up with him, but to communicate about how I feel so maybe things can get better.

Then, if life still progressed the way it has, I would tell myself to stay the fuck away from Tino. From there, I'm sure life would be MUCH different.

Speaking of which, May 11th this year will be 10 years since Tino raped me. This really brings home to me that I was such a child at the time. It makes me sad. Of course, all rape is sad.
You know the good thing about this year, though? On May 11th, I will be in FREAKING DENMARK. With any luck, I won't even remember what day it is.

Life is horrible and beautiful. Both aspects make me cry.

Whisper Of The Heart

Tonight at writers' group I will receive feedback on my first submission to the group. I submitted a short story about being nervous about writers' group, and then as something extra, I submitted the first three chapters of my novel that I'm putting on hold to write the cooler one.

I'm freaking out and trying not to freak out.

The movie Whisper of the Heart acts as wonderful encouragement to me when I'm trying to write. I should just have it playing on repeat in my apartment.

"No one should expect perfection when they're first starting out."

[offers a geode] "Take a look."
"It looks like a rock."
"It's a special kind of rock called a geode. Hold it close to your eye and look inside." [holds a light behind the geode to illuminate the crystals]
"Wow, look at that..."
"Those crystals are called beryl; there are pieces of raw emeralds deep inside them."
"Aren't emeralds worth a lot of money?"
"Sure, but they need to be cut and polished first. When you first behind an artist, you are like that rock. You are in a raw, natural state, with hidden gems inside. You have to dig down deep and find the emeralds tucked away inside you. And that's just the beginning. Once you've found your gems, you have to polish them. It takes a lot of hard work. Oh, and here's the tricky part: look at the crack in the geode. You see that big green crystal there? You could spend years polishing that and it wouldn't be worth much at all. The smaller crystals are much more valuable. And the may be some even deeper inside that we can't see, which are even more precious."
"What if I look inside myself and I don't find any gems? What if I'm just a rock? ...I'm going to try anyway."

"I'm glad I pushed myself. I know myself better now."

It's time to admit it.

I've recently stopped writing my novel. I still plan to finish it; I'm just so much more excited about my other idea for a novel.

Also, as much as I hate this, I was looking over some questions to ask yourself about your writing. I did great with most of them, but when I asked myself, "Why should the reader care?" I couldn't come up with anything. Still can't.
I realized I'm being stubborn; I have the mentality of "I like it so everybody else should too!" I think this is just because I like the WAY I'm writing it. I think, to a point, all aspiring writers really like their writing style. We're told to get rid of our ego, but what's the joy in writing when you're supposed to think you aren't good enough?

Anyway, with my other novel that I have now started, I feel confident in my answers to all of those questions. So, I'll work on this, then come back to the other and see if there is any way to salvage it.

Superpowers and Handicaps

It's interesting how little things can affect you so much.

When I'm walking around listening to fun music on my ipod, I sing along and dance and I don't care who sees and hears. If I try to be that carefree without the false invisibility and security and ego boost my headphones pump into me, well... it's a different story.
I know it's just a mental thing, which means I coils conceivably get over it, which would feel like a superpower all on its own.

I've also been acutely aware lately of my actual physical handicap that I can't do anything about: my eyes. Just in case anyone doesn't know, I can only see out of one eye at a time, which means I don't have stereoscopic vision (ie: depth perception, I don't see the world in 3D,  I can't tell how far things are away from me).
What all that means is that the only way I can really KNOW something's place in space in relation to me is by touching it (which is called proprioception).
I notice problems from this the most at work, when I am draping/undraping an arm or leg. If the client decides to "help" by lifting their limb themselves, if they lift it out of my grasp, it's like I am suddenly blind. I have no clue where the limb is or where to put the sheet or anything. It's really frustrating. :/

Money well spent...

The other day I was walking around downtown. As I passed several stores, I looked at the window displays, thinking about things I wished I was able to buy.
Someone on a street corner addressed me with a big smile, and I thought for a moment that maybe we'd met and I just didn't remember. I stopped and greeted him, and it turned out I didn't know him. I figured he was taking a survey or collecting signatures for a petition or some such thing.
He was with Children International. He didn't show me pictures of teary-eyed children in rags, and he didn't tell me any sob stories; I didn't need them. He told me the facts: what most of the countries they work with are in need of, what their organization does to help, how the supporter's money is used, etc. He told me that sponsoring a child was $7 per week and asked if I could afford to / would like to sign up to sponsor a child and help give them a better chance for the future.
I thought about it, and I realized that $7 per week is easily covered by one bad tipper per week. I thought about all the nice things I'd wanted (but didn't need) to impulse-buy. I decided that this would be a much better use of my money.
So I signed up.
You can choose the gender, age bracket, and country to select your child from. I chose "no preference" for all of them, and checked the box for choosing a child on the emergency list.
So, I would like you to meet my child, Diego Felix Gonzalez Suar. He is 11 years old and lives in Guatemala. I will sponsor him until he graduates from the Children International project when he is 19.

Words, words, words!

I've been bombarded by words lately! This is no bad thing.

I've been writing, although I haven't written much since something a bit traumatic happened two weeks ago.

Luckily, I had other people's writing to read and proofread! It acted as a bit of a "reset button". I feel ready to write again.

One was a vampire book by my friend Duncan; vampires aren't usually my thing, but I am enjoying this one, even though it's making me a little freaked out waiting at bus stops after dark. ;)

Otherwise, I have weekly submissions from a writers' group to read. Last Tuesday was my first time there, and I gotta say, I was intimidated. I always get nervous having people critique my writing, and the other members were pretty blunt to that week's writer. Not rude, but definitely blunt. She was noticeably nervous, and hadn't submitted since July. She kept putting herself down. I feel like I'm going to be like that. I decided with the prompt from Sunrise that my first submission will be a comedic short story grossly exaggerating my worst fears about writers' group. Hopefully it is well-received and will serve to gently let them know that I'm fragile.

Also, I want to start a club or something advocating the correct usage of words. I get so tired of words losing their meaning to people and being used when it really isn't appropriate.