“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

For my old friends... or anybody who happens to still be around.

Well. It's been quite a while since I seriously even looked at the Otaku. I've been mostly on Facebook because I have trouble dealing with all the changes to this place. And the fact that most of the people I used to talk to the most left in disgust. Facebook is great and all, but I'll never make new friends there the way I did here. Generally I'm too afraid to accept friend requests from people I now see as potential creepers. Somehow it seemed safer on the Otaku.

Well, just to very briefly and generally update for anybody who might be interested . . . Gabe (Fury) and I are still together and seeing each other every few months (the Quebec-Virginia trip is pretty arduous and expensive to make any more frequently than that) and we're very very happy. We've now been together for just over four and a half years. So, there you go. Never let anybody tell you internet relationships can't work.

I've been applying to college; I'm in my senior year now. I've been accepted to VCUArts, but I haven't heard from any of the others yet. I don't expect to hear from them till April. I've applied to Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Virginia and Swarthmore College. I'm pretty apprehensive about college. I've gone to the same lower-middle-high school all my life and I'm not used to drastic changes. Everyone tells me I'll enjoy college. We'll see. :

Well, I'm still doing lots of art; I'm planning to go into Illustration and maybe book jacket design. I'm pleased to say my work has improved considerably in the time between when I used to post it regularly and now. I'm also still heavily into world religions and mythology, and I may end up making a career of that also.

I'm not sure what else to write about. So much has happened since this place was my life. I'm sad that it can't be that to me anymore. But I think Gabe and I are going to try and frequent this place again, at least a little. So we don't forget the place we met and used to spend so much time. In all truth, this site was directly and indirectly responsible for my making it out of that horrible hell most people refer to as the middle-school years.

So to all my old friends, I hope your lives are going well and I miss you all and the fun we used to have on the Otaku. Happy Valentine's Day. <3

Alright

i know i haven't written about the two weeks that gabe was here yet, and i've been meaning to for a while. i couldn't do it immediately after, it just hurt too much to talk about that soon after he left. so here goes.
it was without a doubt the best two weeks of my life and exceeded my expectations in every way. we were both worried about disappointing the other in some way, since we'd never met in person before. we laugh just remembering that worry now. XD
when we first met at the airport we hugged for 20 minutes before doing or saying anything else. i know it was 20 minutes because i wasn't keeping count at all, but mom says when she was in starbucks waiting for us she looked up 20 minutes later and we were still hugging.
anyway after that it was almost like we'd been together like that forever. we got comfortable with each other really fast and it didn't take us long to start acting like retards in stores together and all that good stuff. we had especial fun when we got lost on the way to chincoteague island on some neverending back road i didn't even know existed. it was epic.
we went to the beach a few times, the movies, the mall... i think i enjoyed it most though when it was just the two of us watching movies together at home. although i loved all of it. including when we made up a whole method of communication using the word "chips."
i really miss having him around now that he's back in quebec, but i've got a train ticket that says i'm going up there in november, bitches. >:D
so yeah.
i just wrote this to let those of my friends on here who haven't heard about it yet know how it went, since they've been hearing how excited i've been about it for a long time. also to laugh in the faces of anybody who says or thinks that internet relationships can't work. so there. :D

So then you were like Whoa! And I was like Whoa!! And you were like Whoa.....

i still hate worlds. trying to get sort of used to them though. i wouldn't mind so much if people actually read them, but y'know...
so here i am, sitting in computer class, pondering the mysteries of the universe, such as whether i really did well on that math quiz last period or if i'm just fooling myself into oblivion again. i need some coffee. OH MY GOD, i want raw cookie dough right now. i HATE having no access to a refrigerator.
in my opinion, this is the only worthwhile smiley in our spanking new cache of pixellated overcuteness ----->
i need to watch some new anime. i haven't in such a long time. i actually HAVE anime that i haven't watched, but for some reason i haven't watched it yet. i've had mushi-shi 3 since my BIRTHDAY, goddamnit, and i haven't even seen it yet! this is like a disease for me. it's mushi-shi. come ON. also i've had deathnote two. but since i don't have the first one, i have a reason for not watching that one yet.
...i have too many papers to work on......
i don't know anything about the korean war and my damned army helmet is from vietnam. so there goes my chance to take up a few minutes of my presentation putting an incredibly heavy thing on my head and falling over. also, i have an english paper on Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, best writer ever. i found him on myspace and begged him to be my friend. no answer yet. my heart will break into miniscule fragments if he won't be my friend.
i kinda wish school was closer to being over, but if it was, exams would be here. and... i'm not ready for exams. not in the slightest.
i'm so bad. i don't study for anything except math and sometimes history, and then only the night before. including exams.
somehow though i still get A's. this is a huge mystery to me. i just wish it applied to math as well as my other subjects. math is an everyday struggle for my life.
i'm taking in-the-car driving classes with a neurotic teacher and a girl in my class who doesn't like me.

i'm shutting up now, because i think i've spewed out everything my mind can wrap itself around right now.
------->the parting glance

Setting Free a Heart

My cats are stalking each other again. Orange-and-white flame spreads slowly across the grass, pretending casualness, and the pool of ink slinks in the shade, pale green eyes burning animosity. A fight is sure to break out in carefully counted seconds. But their interest in each other is detached, and today it is too alive.
Something dark bursts out of the ground between them and flees to the thick ivy cover under a bush that drips bright red flowers. I throw myself against the door and it gives with a raucous jangling of bells; I run at them waving my arms like an avenging roc and shouting “Get! Away! Now!” The harsh cawing works. The two cats have never looked so surprised and offended by me. Shimbo, still lurking in the shade because it matches him, gives me a glare of incredulity when I ask him where the thing went. What kind of cat would I be if I gave away information like that? He wants to know.
He has a point. I dig around in the ivy and decaying petals myself, gingerly because I don’t want to hurt the bird, or be gored (if it’s in a particularly bad mood). Finally I see a light white-flecked brown that clashes with vibrant green and decaying leaves, and I pull the ivy aside. The bird is looked bigger from the window and I’m surprised that its quaking body is at most only half the size of my palm.
I slide my hand slowly through the leaves toward it, still petrified of breaking it to pieces, it looks so fragile. At the touch of my hand it lurches forward and burrows deeper into the twisted vines around the bush’s base. It’s so dark under the confounded shrubbery I’m sure I’ve lost it. “Damn, damn, damn.” I mutter as I work through the leaves again. Shimbo is still watching me closely, assuring me that he’ll take over the search once I give up; Mischief, the other cat, prowls a few yards away.
Then I spot the ravaged tail-feathers again. This time I reach without hesitation, half-closing my hand around the little body before it lunges again, this time out of my reach and around the bush. Shimbo leaps to the chase and I think the only thing I can do now is pull him off the tiny bird once he’s crushed it with his colossal weight.
But as he turns around the bush towards me, a little arrow darts between my knees and shelters underneath me where I kneel. My cat shoots me another look of disgust, because I can never catch my own small animals; no, I always have to rob him of his. He slinks off to brood.
I sit there breathing shallowly for something like five minutes before I lean over to look between my knees. The tiny bird is down there, shut off from a backdoor escape by my shoes.
I reach slowly and deliberately to close my fingers around it, and pull it out into the light, chirruping and bewildered. Then I manage somehow to get both hands around it while it thrusts upward, opening and closing its tiny beak in horror at the even bigger monster that now has it firmly trapped. Funny how I can tell it’s looking at my face, even though its little water-droplet eyes are black through and through. Its whole body throbs with its pulse as it finally falls still, watching me. I’m holding a beating organ in my hand.
Almost as scared as the bird, I don’t know what to do now. We hold still, sizing each other up, neither having any idea what happens next.
I take it to my Dad, who isn’t very interested. He tells me to find somewhere to put it, and if it seems unhurt, to let it go far away from the house and the cats. Obviously, my shaky “It’s cute” has made him afraid that I will want to keep it like I would have at age 8.
I find one of my ornamental wooden bird cages and, with a lot of angling, get the little bird in. Still it’s doing nothing but watching me. Its liquid eyes accuse me of crimes I’d never dream of committing against an adorable little avian creature. Upon close inspection it proves to be some kind of wren. Unfortunately for me, Google knows everything, so its assertion that wrens eat pretty much nothing but spiders and bugs does not thrill me. Still, I know that I probably shouldn’t risk keeping it overnight anyway; in my absence the little juggernaut has come alive and is currently occupied bashing itself against the flimsy wooden bars of the cage. The hyperventilating wren resembles more than ever a pumping heart, enclosed in someone’s ribcage.
Since the bird is so energetic, I decide it’s probably safe to let it go now. Almost all of its tail-feathers are missing, but they’ll grow back, my all-knowing guru father informs me. I take a leisurely walk through the chilly breeze and light rain down our road, with the cage in my hand vibrating more the further we go. At one point the little wren sticks its head between the bars, confident it can squeeze through. Its head promptly gets stuck and it chirps desolately until I pry the bars apart for it to pull out.
Finally, I climb a slippery slope that leads to the stretch of woods on the other side of the road. There’s a haven of undergrowth for the crazy thing to shelter in. I set the cage down and assure my frantic friend it will be free in ten seconds, then pry the metal clips off the bottom of the cage and pull the top off with an unintended jerk.
This move completely stumps the wren. It looks right, then left, right again, left again, up at me, right again, then decides if I’m really stupid enough to stand there, not devouring it messily, it should seize the opportunity. I watch the little bird skitter across the wet ground till it finds a tangle of vines like veins and jumps into the middle, holding stock-still, convinced it’s outwitted me and I am now casting about for my lost snack. I wave at it somewhat sourly, knowing already that wild animals do not generally express gratefulness, but still feeling somewhat empty.
Then I walk back home to my bitter cats and the empty flower-bush, finished with my heart transplant.
I think of the overused saying, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours; If it doesn't, it never was in the first place." I know full well that I couldn't call that bird my own. But right now as I pick up a glass, as I touch a stuffed animal, my hands itch. I can't stop reliving that dangerous, amazing feeling... like holding a ticking bomb.

Update, yo

Indigo Sea has had two pages added to it today. Aya has not been updated lately. I wanted to put some banner/links in my introduction, but version vibrant is so bloody brilliant you can't even embed or html more than one picture into the intro... or posts :)
this place is screwed.
anyway, for people who read Indigo Sea, here's the fancy-schmancy link banner that i worked on for quite a while url:
http://www.theotaku.com/fancomics/view/2893/indigo_sea