With Friends Like These Who Needs Normal

7:00PM

I'd always thought the ability of my family to hold a grudge came from my grandfather, a German.
But on my research, I'm now suspecting it came from his wifes family - scots. The scots took grudges and put them in their childrens hope chests, to pass down. The scots refined grudges, honed them sharp, and threw them at their target with deadly accuracy. (or in the case of my ancestor, ...oops.)
My uncle hasn't talked to me in years. Wont have a thing to do with me. I hated another uncle, with a passion only capable by a teenager. I dispised him with every fiber and breath in my body. And even though he's been dead these last 30ish years, and the passion has faded, it takes nothing at all for the feelings to well up; when I think of his death, I think "good riddence".
My grandmothers fathers family I've traced to Gilchirst, First Earl of Menteith. Gilchrist was a great grandson of the Irish prince Anrothan of the O’Neill line of kings of northern Ireland.
Tracing back down Gilchrists decendants, we find a branch called Callendar, who backed the wrong side of a war, and lost his title and house to his daughters husband, Livingston, who's decendant married a Ruthven...who's decendant (my blood ancestor), Alexander Ruthven, hated King James with what I emagine to be a stronger hatred than I held for my uncle. The Gowrie conspiracy was an utter failer, and Alexander was killed by the Kings friends and guards. He was then tried (king James: "You Traitor!"), hung, drawn and quartered (after his death!), and body parts sent to various places for disply. King James, showing that grand scottish humor, distroyed the Ruthven name, took the castle and lands (and incendently, not paying back the £80,000 he owed the Ruthvents) and started hunting down every Ruthven family member he could find. Some he killed, some he imprissoned. Those that were smart - like Alexanders' son, James (my ancestor) changed their name and went to "the contenant" (probably england). James changed his name to his mothers maiden name - the name my grandmother was born with.
I think there's two things I've learned. 1. There needs to be an end to the anger. 2. don't leave your victim alone with a servant.

11:26AM - Writer's Block: Reflections

Writing five novels in November for Nanowrimo, actually entering the 3 Day Novel Contest, moving from Kansas to Arkansas in May. Having the best holidays of my life this year over Christmas too. No, I don't wish I could do it all over again, I'm glad the moving is done. I expect to go on writing lots of novels in future too.

11:23AM - Fuzzy Puppy Painting

Rhiannon
8" x 10"
Pan Pastels on Sand color Art Spectrum Colourfix

Painted from one of my photos and from life. She's so cute she doesn't even look like a real dog, more like a plushie toy dog. Till she barks and wiggles and runs around. I really like her, even though I'm much more into cats than dogs. Finally did a portrait of one of the family canines!

12:01PM

Someone named an ancestor of mine "Submit" ... for a long time, I though it was a "submit name here" and basiclly blank. But no, I come to find out, that was the girls name, Submit.
Someone's daddy needs to be bitch slapped.

3:13PM - Writer's Block: The morning after

Usually it's a let-down. This year it's not -- the holidays were so low-key and happy without stress that I'm not getting a big crash afterward. I'm just enjoying the day.

5:25PM - A White Wolf

A White Wolf
7" x 9 1/2"
Cretacolor pastel pencils on Anthracite color ClaireFontaine PastelMat coated pastel card.

This one's my gift for Karl, who's very fond of wolves and also of the White Wolf roleplaying games. It took a lot of searching to find the right wolf reference and I'm happy with him, the background's mostly from imagination and took some surprising turns. Because he looked so good on black, I wound up doing a very dark scene with the wolf the lightest element, that was so much fun!

1:47PM - Portrait of Miss Gemini for Kitten (cat portrait)

Miss Gemini in the Window
6 1/2" x 8 3/4"
Cretacolor pastel pencils on brown ClaireFontaine PastelMat
Photo reference is mine, posted for a challenge on the December 2009 Pastel Strokes event in the Soft Pastel Talk forum on WetCanvas.com where I set the challenge of "change the light." I took the photo at night, that was when Gemini decided to pose and be cute in the window. I changed the scene to daylight and happily had the real cat sitting near me (and moving around a lot) so I could color correct her from the photo to accurate likeness.

This wouldn't have mattered so much if I wasn't doing it as a direct portrait of that cat where it was important to get her colors and markings as true as possible. If I was just doing her as a nice cat picture and didn't know her, I might have changed her markings or colors easily to suit the painting. But I did have her to model and even though she didn't sit still, she purred for me. Also Kitten helped by holding the picture way across the room when I asked her to, so that I'd see it at a distance and know what needed to be done next.

I'm happy with how it came out including the background. I simplified the window view but successfully got the Arkansas sky intensity even in winter and the wooden window shelf the cats lay or sit on, even the color of the wall is close to true.

I have just spent the happiest Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning of my life today. The kids were wonderful, they happily played with their presents, got all excited about everything and shared the candy from their stockings. Gabriel and Sascha loved the books I got them. Sascha identified half a dozen dinosaurs in Dinotopia on sight and Gabriel studiously turned pages in The Lion and The Mouse and enjoyed it.

They both chased New Puppy Rhiannon around and around at high speed laughing. There were no tears, no screams, no squabbles, just happy giggling and occasional singing of Jingle Bells with unique words and tune. Plus of course the deep voiced electronic announcement of Sascha's cherished new toy giving his identity: "I am Optimus Prime."

Gabriel listened a few times and then squared up his shoulders, looked all big and tough and said "I am Optimus Prime" in as deep a voice as he could manage! It was great!

1:38PM - Writer's Block: That's a wrap!

No, nothing from my childhood. I have holiday traditions that we're creating now during my grandchildrens' childhood and every one of them is precious. We're creating new ones every year and this year's holidays were the best in my life.

3:43PM

My stomach has been hurting for like 3 days now. Every time i eat, it hurts more. And as the Law of Physic dictates; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or in other words: what comes in must come out.

7:40AM

Merry christmas for those that partake!
I woke up early today - asthma attack. As i'm settling back down all comfy and cozy, I hear a sound. It was the sound of the TARDIS.
I'm like, WTF?
I think there's a little kid around here who is going to get a very special christmas.

9:58PM - Writer's Block: You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!

I don't have cable any more or watch television at all. Back when I did, I liked "It's A Wonderful Life" because of its suicide theme and "A Christmas Carol" in all its iterations. The last few years though, good ones have been less likely to show up and my favorites didn't air at all so I didn't miss it when I stopped getting cable. I might buy a couple of these classics someday.

9:44PM - Estemmenosuchus Swamp Scene Finished!

Estemmenosuchus Swamp Scene
5" x 7"
Pen and watercolor on watercolor paper.

Finished at last! Painting this was very tricky and involved a lot of reworking to get it just right. Unfortunately the scan dropped some light colors to white -- that golden color on the tree trunks that's glazed sunlight is actually all the way down the lit areas, not patches of white, while the white reflections on the water are actually a pale greenish blue. It looks a bit better in life.

Also, the horizon shades to a light gold with pretty dawn colors rather than shading to white the way it looks in the scan. Frustrating when I can't actually get the colors right when posting something. This one may not get turned into prints if the color's that inaccurate.

I decided that those extravagant horns were a mating display and would look good in red, drawing attention to this magnificent vegetarian crocodile from the opposite sex. So this is a male one in full flush of mating display. Some other patches of the red appear in his mottled back patterns. It was one of the largest creatures of its time and about as fearless with predators as a healthy moose, it didn't need to camouflage itself.

So here he is -- Estemmenosuchus mirabilis, with a salad in his mouth!

9:49PM - Writer's Block: Holiday cheer

Since I moved in with my daughter Kitten, holidays have been a lot of fun. They have bright moments now, this year it was hearing my granddaughter Sascha sing Jingle Bells and not know all the words, filling in nonsense syllables where she didn't know it. She didn't sing quite the same tune that everyone knows either, though I like her tune. It was a tune, not off key or anything -- just creatively different. With my three year old grandson singing along with it mostly in nonsense syllables.

They are cool. I used to get severely depressed around the holidays, usually the whole month of December. Most years it was pretty bad. I think the worst were when I was homeless either in the shelter or crashing with people, or when I lived alone and didn't know anyone in the area. It's not a time of year to be lonely and not have family. It's really rough on anyone who doesn't have family.

It makes a huge difference if some of your friends don't have family, to drop by and spend some time with them. Bringing a small card or present can mean so much. I'm not saying spend a lot of money -- if it was handmade it meant even more, if it was something you drew or came up with or did as a project. You know who your friends are.

If any of them are homeless, those are the ones most in need of a friend at the holidays. It's some help when charities get out with a turkey and some dollar store presents. It means more if you come down there to visit your friend and give them something personal, something that you know that friend likes a lot. It can be from the dollar store but if it's something that you know they'd like and enjoy even if they were employed and had a real apartment, that's what touches the heart.

There was a kid that started a charity for homeless children, to give a piece of luggage and a stuffed animal to every homeless child in America. I loved that kid's idea. She visited a shelter and talked to kids there. She found out most of them really wanted something to pack what things they had in, living out of a trash sack was incredibly depressing. So she started getting donated sports bags and inexpensive luggage from companies, set up a nonprofit to fund it, she had managed to reach about a third of the homeless children in the country when I read the article a few years ago.

It stuck in my mind as the most thoughtful gift for any friend who's homeless -- if you give them a piece of luggage that's not ripped or ratty that they can keep their things in, it feels more like staying in a hotel. Often people need to move constantly from shelter to shelter, a decent looking backpack or sports bag can make the difference between people staring at them or no one noticing. For adults, I wouldn't necessarily put a stuffed animal in it but I would put in something that's a toy.

Just something personal like a paperback in a genre they love or scarf in their favorite team colors or maybe yeah the teddy bear or plushie if it's a woman who liked plushies. Plushie Cthulhu would be great for a science fiction fan.

That's just my thought on depression and the season -- homeless shelters are grim places. I have a happy place to be this year with little voices singing the New Jingle Bells with the new words that include La la la lo lo lo lu lu lu lu lay... but I remember the years that I wasn't. The worst part of being officially homeless was being cut off from everyone I knew, though I didn't know at the time that some people were looking for me. It would've made a big difference if I'd known that.

4:57PM

This guy is an ancestor of mine... I'm his greatx13-granddaugher.


Rev. Thomas Hooker, Jr. born in 1586 in the UK and dying in 1647 in Hartford Ct, usa.
Now, to be honest, the guy looks like a total sour puss. If I'd known him in real life, i probablly would have run screaming into the (wilderness) night - with him screaming (spittle flying) hell-fire and damnation after me. Puritans were considered radicals in the UK and had to flee for their lives. Lucky us, they settled in the america's yeah?

now, THIS guy, is my g-g-g-grandfathers brother


Augustus Lewis Cowart (and boy, i'll bet he learned to fight real good and real early) and his wife, nancy. This looks like one tough buzzard, fightin' injins (no relation at this point. that can be proved!) and just about ready for anything. And nancy looks like she's got a good sense of humor (probably needed with that old coot!). These people I think I would have been proud to know.
Here's August in his youth:



Corporal Augustus Lewis Cowart, our boy in blue.

Acutally, I've got boys in grey and blue, but dont have pictures.

1:40AM - Writer's Block: Winter wonderland

I would prefer to spend my life in a tropical paradise, but I'll settle for Arkansas for love of the people I'm with. Not just a holiday. Forget snow. Forget bad weather, ever, send me someplace warm and green and flower-filled and moist where I've got enough AC for the hot-hot days and I'm good. Nature evolved me for places where you drink rum in fruit beverages that knock you flat and paint naked women on weekends while pounding out novels. I would actually be painting some of the nudes outdoors if I lived someplace beautiful in the tropics.

7:33PM - Writer's Block: Simply wonderful

Snuggling my cat Ari. I am loved by a cat. (Kitty picture below.) But if you leave out relationships and love, I'd have to say it's my art supplies. I enjoy buying new supplies, testing products, drawing and painting with them, finding new things I bought months or years ago that I haven't actually tried yet. Drawing and painting is a major stress relief for me, it lightens things up on pain days and it gives me something cool to write about and socialize about. Art's a good icebreaker in almost any circumstance.

So of course sometimes I combine these pleasures by painting portraits of my beloved cat or taking his picture to do portraits from!


Ari on my Knee
Oil pastel on sanded pastel paper, 8" x 10"
This is the best portrait I've ever done of him to date. My sketchbook's full of him though and my hard drive is full of good photo references of him and my daughter's cat, so I'll naturally do more! He was purring when I took the reference photo, plastered on my lap completely relaxed and purring while I waved the phone around getting him from different angles.

7:25PM - Stones and Pine Cone

Stones and Pine Cone
5" x 6 1/2"
Derwent Coloursoft colored pencils on white ProArt wirebound sketchbook paper. Drawn from life, using stones Sascha's been bringing home from the schoolyard for me. She has an eye for finding the attractive or interesting ones, I had fun setting this up.

Today's another arthritis sick day so I'm curling up watching Lord of the Rings on my netbook, while occasionally puttering with colored pencils that don't need cleanup to speak of.

11:47AM

My son Avery is having back surgery today. He's got a bulging vertabre that is pinching the nerve to his leg. 24 and he's "getting old" - he always was really rough on his body. He's on facebook, so I caved and got a facebook page, just to keep up with him.

8:46PM - Writer's Block: Honesty is such a lonely word

I think that if it's not, that relationship is a dangerous one. I want to be able to trust a partner well enough to be honest about everything. I don't want ugly surprises after I've made a commitment only to find out something I don't think anything of revealing turns out to be a deal-breaker. I'm up front about anything that I'm actually aware of on getting into a relationship.

Think about this: if you're willing to lie to get someone for your lover, then who is it she loves? You or this lie, this fiction you created?

The best relationships I've ever had began with the kind of trusting friendships where she did know everything before it turned romantic.

Keep in mind though, that I'm not into traditional American male infidelity. I suppose unfaithful guys lie about it and that gets taken for granted. Yet all too often I've seen them get burned bad once it's found out.

If you want an open relationship, get that on the table before making the commitment. Let her know it's cool and don't expect a double standard -- you have to be willing to set up a new type of rules to make that work. Casual interests should never become so important they threaten the main relationship, for one thing. For another, disease prevention is not just about you but also the one you love.

So maybe I can sit on my high horse about honesty because I've always been faithful when in a monogamous relationship. Or maybe I've just been so upfront about it that I was able to enjoy open relationships as such too. I don't get jealous of casual flings because that's not usually why people break up. They break up over other issues and the fling might be some kind of deliberate malice or just the temptation of someone who's being nicer to you than your partner is at the moment because she or he is courting.

It's not worth it having to keep up with the lies. It's not worth it having to keep up with the relationships either if a guy gets tangled up between wife and mistress, because that second relationship could also develop into something deeper but then everyone's going to be in a bad situation.

So I would say, be honest -- and then look for someone honest. You get what you give.

Stop and think about how you'd feel if you were in a deep relationship and found out she was the one lying about something that'd break your heart, be that infidelity or something else.

8:38PM - Da Vinci sketch (copy)

Bearded Man after Leonardo da Vinci
3 1/2" x 5 1/2"
9B graphite pencil on Moleskine sketchbook.

I drew this copying one of the sketches in my Leonardo da Vinci Sketchbook and was glad to see I got the gist of the man's character. I'm still working on getting the gestural strokes he used for doing curly hair, they look so cool on anyone's curls, also da Vinci's hatching and crosshatching seems more fluid than mine, less stiff. Still, it's a good start on copying the masters.

In other news, I finished line editing Vaumuru's Curse last night and discovered I don't have multiple new chapters to finish. Only one, they need to get to that ancient cave and discover its horrifying secrets. That's it. I was going to do it tonight, but today's been a pretty heavy pain day.

Okay, it was a breakout pain day and at a couple of points when I first got up it slammed up to pain level ten. That's the "I want to die" level. So maybe getting a sick day in the middle of a project is something I have to accept, but at least I know now that the rest of the project is within reach. It should only take me a day to write the chapter and another day to clean up the synopsis and do the cover letter.

Then it's out the door to the Ethan Ellenberg Agency and four other markets or agents. I hope I get an agent, I really do. But if I get a publisher first, that is a good way to get an agent anyway!