Ah, hey, egg has hatched. I named it Basalt. That's a kind of rock, I think. 
Isn't it cute in an odd, very-few-pixels kind of way? I hope it looks cool when it grows up... if it grows up...
... Will die if it doesn't grow up in 1.81 days?! Yeek. Please, causal browsers of the flists belonging to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
baxil and solsticedawn, I implore you to click. You need not do anything else.
We go from very frivolous to somewhat frivolous, as I change topic to the ritual buying of gifts.
Shopping for the heavily commercialized winter holiday. I got my sister a very small decorative blanket with my university's mascot on it, because she expressed mild interest when she saw the one Mom and Dad bought for me. Still need to get the others. My brother should be easy. He wants food, the kind that he doesn't get very often. Last year, as well as other, longer-lasting items, he got a 3-liter bottle of soda and two large bags of Swedish Fish. They were gone in about two weeks. And recently, the pepper grinder broke at the dinner table, and my dad mentioned how cool some pepper-grinders are. I wonder where I could find one... No idea what Mom gets yet. The cats are easy, though. Very, very easy. At least until Mom finds the catnip and gets mad.
We then go from somewhat frivolous to fairly serious as the topic moves to my own brand of spirituality.
My mom was originally a Catholic until she moved to the States, when she converted to Methodist. I go to church when they ask me to go, but... really, my heart isn't in it.
I suppose it started... oh, Guardian, it must have been six years ago, or more. The Youth Group I was in, we were making a peace mural based on some verse in the bible which has lion lying with lamb, all animals in peace, that kind of thing. So we were painting all kinds of animals. I was artsy even then, obviously enough that people noticed, so I started off with a bull, an elephant, and a big huge dove right in the center. Good so far, huh?
Then I painted a dragon.
It's long enough ago that I don't really remember clearly. But at some point I was close enough to hear my peers, but hidden and they didn't know I was there. I heard them saying that a dragon didn't belong on a peace mural, since it would be breathing fire on everything and dragons were devils. I don't remember what I did then, what happened next, but when I saw the mural again they'd painted over the dragon.
It wasn't a demonic-looking dragon. Not by anyone's standards. It wasn't breathing fire, it had no horns - it looked a lot like this, reproduced in about 5 minutes using Paint.
I still remember well enough to reproduce in five minutes using Paint because at the time of painting it seemed like the best thing on the mural. I was proud of it.
When I saw that it had been painted over, I remember thinking that it would have been okay if they'd gone to me and said that they thought the dragon might be inappropriate. I might have been annoyed and defensive, but it would have been okay. The Youth Leaders, naturally, said nothing to me. They probably thought that my peers were right.
As it was... I think that's the maddest I have ever been in my life. Mad enough to chip my teeth from clenching them together, mad enough that I couldn't think, mad enough to rock back and forth like someone four times more autistic than me.
I think my first thought was to take a container of red paint and splash it all over the mural. But I didn't - I don't remember why. Maybe I didn't want to get caught. I waited until no one was there, then I took a brush and red paint, scribbled "PEACE IS A LIE" on the dove, and left the brush with a blob of red paint on the dove like a spear. I don't know why I didn't just splash the mural. But I wasn't the only one who'd been painting.
I remember on the way home, I was talking about it and my dad finally got fed up. I don't remember what he said, but I felt horribly furious and betrayed.
After that point, church was never the same. Previously I'd prayed from time to time, never devout, but I'd done it. After, I never did. Previously, I'd sung to the hymns. After, no. Previously, I'd taken the Bible and everything that went with it as the Good Book. After, I couldn't stop picking up on things I didn't like - "sheep", for instance, and all these other things like the specialness of humanity. It's not that I think Christianity = evil, it's more that I don't think of myself as Christian. This thought didn't come for years after, but it was there in the background.
Also, before my main interest was dinosaurs. After? Dragons. Sometimes it seems like every other thing I do involves them, somehow. I don't remember when in relation to the mural event it was, but I was once friends with this girl who had a similarly active imagination. We'd make worlds together. Eventually she grew up, and I did not, but one of the first things I made without her was the Guardian. Essentially, a protective dragon god. I won't say that I worship him, but... I do swear by him. I know, it's silly. But even so...
There was a project, later on in the Youth group, where everyone did self-portaits in oil pastels. Mine was a dragon; my reasoning at the time was that I wouldn't be able to get human proportions down right, and nobody would know the difference if I didn't draw human. Frankly, it wasn't good. Worlds better than what all my peers were doing, but still, not good. One of them saw mine, saw the horns and the ears and the muzzle, and said, "Is that a cow? Are you a cow?"
Nasty little snot. Kept pestering me until I bit my arm, really hard. That scared him off. It also meant that the Youth Group stopped talking to me entirely, but that wasn't really a bad thing either. The instructor didn't seem to think it was bad, even though I could tell she was thinking "What the hell is wrong with this girl?"
Later still, we were supposed to paint a cross on these fake-canvas-stretched-over-wooden-frames things. Again, the rest were... urgh. I couldn't bring myself to just paint a cross, so I did an extreme close up of a wide, almost fearful yellow eye with a slotted pupil, set into green skin. In that pupil, so as to fulfil the assignment, I put a tiny white cross. Like a reflection. Naturally, my peers were critical, but I didn't care.
I suppose, to me, dragons symbolize being different. Being alone. I have Asperger's Syndrome - not as bad as it is in some, but bad enough. I suppose to me, that's what dragons mean.
Now we go from fairly serious to serious-and-impacting-the-immediate-future, as I bring up adoption.
My parents, along with my brother and sister, are going to fly to the Phillippines (I know that's spelled wrong. Bleh.) to adopt my cousin Kim. I'm going to stay home, possibly with my grandma and aunt for a bit.
I want to stay home, to be honest. I hate travel. No matter where we are going, I hate to travel. And to the Philippines? Not a destination with clear rules and some order? The thought makes me shudder. I'm going to be lonely. But I don't want to travel when I don't have to.
Still, when they come back they'll be bringing a girl that I don't know who will live with us. This is a major disruption. I know it's the right thing to do and all, but... Major disruption.
Also, someone knew moved into my dorm room this weekend. I know who she is, but this too is a disruption. I feel crazy stressed, and it doesn't even have anything to do with finals. To quote someone whining in a context that for once makes sense to me, my world is changing and I don't like it.
And now, at the last, we progress from serious-and-impacting-the-immediate-future to utterly frivolous and egotistical, as I drag out a few Paint drawings.
I like Juhani. I know a lot of people think she's freaky-looking, and maybe she is, but I like her. The fact that I seem incapable of drawing her as she looks in the game might be part of that.
A few years back the password to my account on the family computer was the overly long "A Green-Gold Dragonness." I don't remember why. But I drew one. Haven't colored the eyes yet. Maybe I should stick with KotOR fanart.
And here is a face. No explanation. You, hypothetical readers of the flists of Baxil and Solsticedawn, must endure the mystery of not knowing my thoughts about this image. Mhahahahaha.
Isn't it cute in an odd, very-few-pixels kind of way? I hope it looks cool when it grows up... if it grows up...... Will die if it doesn't grow up in 1.81 days?! Yeek. Please, causal browsers of the flists belonging to
baxil and solsticedawn, I implore you to click. You need not do anything else.We go from very frivolous to somewhat frivolous, as I change topic to the ritual buying of gifts.
Shopping for the heavily commercialized winter holiday. I got my sister a very small decorative blanket with my university's mascot on it, because she expressed mild interest when she saw the one Mom and Dad bought for me. Still need to get the others. My brother should be easy. He wants food, the kind that he doesn't get very often. Last year, as well as other, longer-lasting items, he got a 3-liter bottle of soda and two large bags of Swedish Fish. They were gone in about two weeks. And recently, the pepper grinder broke at the dinner table, and my dad mentioned how cool some pepper-grinders are. I wonder where I could find one... No idea what Mom gets yet. The cats are easy, though. Very, very easy. At least until Mom finds the catnip and gets mad.
We then go from somewhat frivolous to fairly serious as the topic moves to my own brand of spirituality.
My mom was originally a Catholic until she moved to the States, when she converted to Methodist. I go to church when they ask me to go, but... really, my heart isn't in it.
I suppose it started... oh, Guardian, it must have been six years ago, or more. The Youth Group I was in, we were making a peace mural based on some verse in the bible which has lion lying with lamb, all animals in peace, that kind of thing. So we were painting all kinds of animals. I was artsy even then, obviously enough that people noticed, so I started off with a bull, an elephant, and a big huge dove right in the center. Good so far, huh?
Then I painted a dragon.
It's long enough ago that I don't really remember clearly. But at some point I was close enough to hear my peers, but hidden and they didn't know I was there. I heard them saying that a dragon didn't belong on a peace mural, since it would be breathing fire on everything and dragons were devils. I don't remember what I did then, what happened next, but when I saw the mural again they'd painted over the dragon.
It wasn't a demonic-looking dragon. Not by anyone's standards. It wasn't breathing fire, it had no horns - it looked a lot like this, reproduced in about 5 minutes using Paint.
I still remember well enough to reproduce in five minutes using Paint because at the time of painting it seemed like the best thing on the mural. I was proud of it.
When I saw that it had been painted over, I remember thinking that it would have been okay if they'd gone to me and said that they thought the dragon might be inappropriate. I might have been annoyed and defensive, but it would have been okay. The Youth Leaders, naturally, said nothing to me. They probably thought that my peers were right.
As it was... I think that's the maddest I have ever been in my life. Mad enough to chip my teeth from clenching them together, mad enough that I couldn't think, mad enough to rock back and forth like someone four times more autistic than me.
I think my first thought was to take a container of red paint and splash it all over the mural. But I didn't - I don't remember why. Maybe I didn't want to get caught. I waited until no one was there, then I took a brush and red paint, scribbled "PEACE IS A LIE" on the dove, and left the brush with a blob of red paint on the dove like a spear. I don't know why I didn't just splash the mural. But I wasn't the only one who'd been painting.
I remember on the way home, I was talking about it and my dad finally got fed up. I don't remember what he said, but I felt horribly furious and betrayed.
After that point, church was never the same. Previously I'd prayed from time to time, never devout, but I'd done it. After, I never did. Previously, I'd sung to the hymns. After, no. Previously, I'd taken the Bible and everything that went with it as the Good Book. After, I couldn't stop picking up on things I didn't like - "sheep", for instance, and all these other things like the specialness of humanity. It's not that I think Christianity = evil, it's more that I don't think of myself as Christian. This thought didn't come for years after, but it was there in the background.
Also, before my main interest was dinosaurs. After? Dragons. Sometimes it seems like every other thing I do involves them, somehow. I don't remember when in relation to the mural event it was, but I was once friends with this girl who had a similarly active imagination. We'd make worlds together. Eventually she grew up, and I did not, but one of the first things I made without her was the Guardian. Essentially, a protective dragon god. I won't say that I worship him, but... I do swear by him. I know, it's silly. But even so...
There was a project, later on in the Youth group, where everyone did self-portaits in oil pastels. Mine was a dragon; my reasoning at the time was that I wouldn't be able to get human proportions down right, and nobody would know the difference if I didn't draw human. Frankly, it wasn't good. Worlds better than what all my peers were doing, but still, not good. One of them saw mine, saw the horns and the ears and the muzzle, and said, "Is that a cow? Are you a cow?"
Nasty little snot. Kept pestering me until I bit my arm, really hard. That scared him off. It also meant that the Youth Group stopped talking to me entirely, but that wasn't really a bad thing either. The instructor didn't seem to think it was bad, even though I could tell she was thinking "What the hell is wrong with this girl?"
Later still, we were supposed to paint a cross on these fake-canvas-stretched-over-wooden-frames things. Again, the rest were... urgh. I couldn't bring myself to just paint a cross, so I did an extreme close up of a wide, almost fearful yellow eye with a slotted pupil, set into green skin. In that pupil, so as to fulfil the assignment, I put a tiny white cross. Like a reflection. Naturally, my peers were critical, but I didn't care.
I suppose, to me, dragons symbolize being different. Being alone. I have Asperger's Syndrome - not as bad as it is in some, but bad enough. I suppose to me, that's what dragons mean.
Now we go from fairly serious to serious-and-impacting-the-immediate-future, as I bring up adoption.
My parents, along with my brother and sister, are going to fly to the Phillippines (I know that's spelled wrong. Bleh.) to adopt my cousin Kim. I'm going to stay home, possibly with my grandma and aunt for a bit.
I want to stay home, to be honest. I hate travel. No matter where we are going, I hate to travel. And to the Philippines? Not a destination with clear rules and some order? The thought makes me shudder. I'm going to be lonely. But I don't want to travel when I don't have to.
Still, when they come back they'll be bringing a girl that I don't know who will live with us. This is a major disruption. I know it's the right thing to do and all, but... Major disruption.
Also, someone knew moved into my dorm room this weekend. I know who she is, but this too is a disruption. I feel crazy stressed, and it doesn't even have anything to do with finals. To quote someone whining in a context that for once makes sense to me, my world is changing and I don't like it.
And now, at the last, we progress from serious-and-impacting-the-immediate-future to utterly frivolous and egotistical, as I drag out a few Paint drawings.
I like Juhani. I know a lot of people think she's freaky-looking, and maybe she is, but I like her. The fact that I seem incapable of drawing her as she looks in the game might be part of that.
A few years back the password to my account on the family computer was the overly long "A Green-Gold Dragonness." I don't remember why. But I drew one. Haven't colored the eyes yet. Maybe I should stick with KotOR fanart.
And here is a face. No explanation. You, hypothetical readers of the flists of Baxil and Solsticedawn, must endure the mystery of not knowing my thoughts about this image. Mhahahahaha.
