Cute Therapy :)

I posted this on my website on invisible illnesses/disabilities and I thought you'd enjoy it:

One thing I firmly believe: cute things make the world easier to handle. Here are a list of sites I visit when I'm down in the dumps and need a non-medicinal pick-me-up... drugs are often laden with side effects, so if cuteness works for you as a supplementary therapy, use it - use it - use it!! (To come next month: funny/joke links)

Cute Overload
Pet of the Day
Yuebing, the sweet and talented Rabbit
Rate My Bunny
Rate My Kitten
Hamster Tracker
Amazing Cat Collection
Awesome Cute Wallpapers
Cute Cartoon Wallpaper Background by Meomi Design
The Daily Kitten
Giant Rabbit Rescue
Cats in Sinks
Kitten Pics
Adorablog
Flickr: Bunnies Unite! Photo pool
Disapproving Rabbits!(there's a second page too!)




More to come, so if you want more cute links, stay tuned to this post. :)
Last Update: June 28th

.The.Beauty.Of.Community.

I've been searching for this for so long.. it's a way to find new authors.. without relying on others. Word of mouth is great, but sometimes I like the computer aspect.
Most of the music I listen to was found by playing LaunchCast Radio, Pandora and the Music Genome project. I have found many great artists this way also, by way of computerized and community based sites.
I have also found a lot of interesting websites by using such community based internet sites such as Stumble Upon - (a super duper place where you get to vote sites as good, tag them with keywords, etc. It's a Firefox toolbar. Awesome.)

What's great about the internet (another great thing) is that community thrives on it! People get together and meld minds, to a certain extent, and knowledge flows like beer at a Frat house. No longer do we have to rely on MTV, Much Music, friends, family, or ET to tell us what's new out there.. no, we can wander into the great busy marketplace that is the net and gather up pieces of ourselves. We find ourselves sometimes by sampling things around the world, finding what we like and what we don't, and it's a lot easier with grandiose variety.

Links:

Gnod - The Global Network of Dreams, where I found Gnooks, the similar author search this article is about. The search has a little bug, where the first suggestion for authors you might like tends to be the artist you enter.. say you like it and it'll show you some other authors of similar taste.

Picture above right is a photo I took last year of fern.

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Vast and grey, the smoke covers the craggy ground. I walk through it, my ankles tickled by the choking smoke, sleeved forearm over mouth, towards what I think is North. Sky as black as ash, the only light comes from glowing fissures in the ground - a cool volcano rumbles beneath. My naked feet feel the textures on the ground which my eyes cannot see. Listless voices light up the void, they whisper intelligible pleas. My hospital gown catches on a jagged peak, and pulls me down into the gap. The gap swallows me forever.

Love: My Definition is This

I feel single again. I have been single for a year and a bit, but now I feel it. My emotional torture is starting to turn into the mating calls of a marmot. Bark... bark bark!

The garden of faded and fresh scars of past relationships haunt me like a distant group of men telling me how uninteresting I am, and another group telling me how overly interesting I am. They all contradict each other. Stalkers, humble admirers, likers, haters, detestors.. I tend to strike up passion one way or another.. which is flattering.

Recently my heart was in a loop, a loop fed by history, misunderstanding, and illusory tickle. It's hard for people to tell me "hard" things, as they're worried about my health. I get that, I respect that. Now things are all sorted out and I have traveled through my anger, sadness, more anger, more sadness, and have let the chitin on my heart shed to reveal a shinier and more hopeful muscle. I feel like my heart is like an insect, each time it learns a lesson it goes through a difficult molting of its exoskeleton and grows bigger - stronger, and beats more fervently.

Single is not bad. Don't get me wrong. I like not having to wait for people to phone me, waiting for them to open up, or knowing that they're not really in it for the right reasons.. I hate having to face up to having to break off a relationship, or having someone break up with me.. there's never a good way. Someone's going to get hurt. If you're hunting for a relationship, be prepared for the tiger to attack you. Very rarely will you find Amoris Domesticus (that is HORRIBLE Latin but I'm not serious enough to pull out my dictionary), maybe half domesticated.. but it'll still have teeth.

Wait, before you start hearing the bishop from the Princess Bride "wove, twooo wove.." - I want to give you my tastes on love... I'm not into 24 hour candy love. Not that sweet love isn't great, I love that, snuggles and giggles and wide smiles all day.. but it's not my full definition. Not by far. There are a few kinds of love in the Book of Em. Most love types cannot be tolerated in great amounts.. with the exception of a couple.

(Disclaimer: this is MY definition, I'm not thinking this is be all and end all, but I'd like your comments.. I miss your comments.. hehe)

Rainbow of Love

Gossipy love: Love where you just can't wait to share gossip with your mate. You want to laugh with them about all the silly things, places, and people you experience during your day, and life, and hear about their silly encounters. You make fun of stupidity in all its forms. You're partners in sharing light hearted anecdotes, secrets, and more. By the way, I'm a big believer in gossip... We're social animals, and gossip is a way to share your morals, beliefs, and "rules." For example, sometimes you gossip about someone doing something illegal: you are testing the person you are telling this illegality to, to see where their own personal boundaries lay. I do the same with "scenario" questions... that's another post all together. Back to the matter at hand.

Sweet love: being lovey-dovey, holding hands, writing cute cards, sharing a cute private language, pet names, buying stuffed animals, all that jazz. That Splenda Candyland that makes the heart blow up like a hot air balloon and float around cloud nine. I love this kind of love. It's puppy love.. innocent, darling.

Fiery Love: this is the passionate "I need to be touching you now" kind of love. The magnetic and unstoppable force that rides the emotion to its highest peaks. Ferocious, sweaty.. it can be heaven to be with them, hell to be without them. This manic depressive state is certainly the most fun I've ever had.. even if it is rare and very brief with most people. I love the need, the gotta have it.. it distracts from pain, gives hope, and more purpose in existing. This is more sexuality than anything, chemistry I think.

Powerful Unspoken Love: this is the protective and invincible love, the rarest gem. This is complete trust (rare for me), no doubt that you'll ever part, that kind of love that would make you die for someone. Forever, loyal, faithful, and sure.

Dark Love: this shares a little bit with the last paragraph, but it goes further. This is the partners in crime, the killer instinct in love, the destructive. The primal violent hatred that springs forth from someone trying to get between you. This is the love that goes to far, that pushes you into another world. The love that makes you die once you've lost it, makes you a zombie. The kind that weighs your heart down with the lead of immortal attraction. Soul Mates, true Soul Mates - once you discover eachother, there are no other human beings on the planet. It's called dark for a reason though.. as if only one of the two has it, it turns into stalking, suicide, or worse. Ideally, both people have it, and everything's good. Too good ;)

Constructive Love: what i mean by this is a partnership love that makes you want to build a life together- get a home, have kids or pets or both, get married, do some home projects, go on holiday together.. The feeling of accomplishment, ambition, "future planning". "When we get our own place, we'll get a dog and a cat, we'll paint the walls all different colours, then we'll get married on a cool May morning."

Escapist Love: this is where you spend time in a fantasy land. Role playing, what-ifs, vacations in a faraway or secluded place, forgetting the real world and making up your own reality. This is a love best served sparsely, in my opinion.

Calm Relaxing Love: when being together makes everything okay, calm, relaxing. You lay in bed all day and smile once in a while. It's very natural, very right. You breathe better, you think more clearly, and you're less selfish, less worried.. you know. Quiet. Peaceful. Like a day at the beach on a lovely day: unless there are man eating sharks that have legs, feet, and amphibious lungs. Or jellyfish stings.

Silly Love: you clown around all the time, belly laughs, your focus is to make your partner laugh as much and as fervently as can be. You take nothing seriously and shrug off anything that tries to be serious.

Have I forgotten one?? I might add to it if I find something else.

My point is that a right mixture of these is what I see as a Perfect Love. Some more than others. Like you're making a really complex meal.. you don't want too much salt, too much hot pepper, too much sugar, too much water, too much flour, too much wine.. you want it to taste good, not over or underwhelming. I think what kinds and ratios also depend on the person, situation, time, and you of course.

If you're in a relationship, what mix of these do you have? What would you like to have? What did you have before that vanished? What has grown? It's interesting to track the progression of a relationship... it's like it never stops changing.

If you're single, what do you want? What mix is your perfect mix? I'm asking myself that. What mix was your perfect past relationship?

What other kinds are there? Please let me know so I can add.. I am such a collector. Nothing better than collecting information.

Now I'm sick of talking about love. The word is like eating rock candy - too much and your tongue gets all sore and cut up. Plus the longer the post, the shorter my attention span. There are a multitude of other things I want to explore.. But I have emails to respond to. You be good, and FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ;)

Art - Rustfire

Profiles
Before I deleted the first version of this website, I was starting work on Artist profiles.. artists that really do it for me. I intend to revisit the artists I already covered, as well as continue. I also will share my own works here.

My Works

Here's a computer painting I did a while ago I wanted to share with you. It's called Rustfire and I created it whilst in a rather .. upset mood. I enjoy him greatly. It expresses pain mainly, also frustration released through anger, and tension released through violence. I enjoy the textures I accomplished, as well as the colours that shine through.

Today

I'm not too bad. I am starting to sleep more.. so the shreddies that are my brain are a little more stable. Yesterday was a little bipolar (I don't have manic depression btw.. just depression.. lol) good and bad times. I got really depressed then I was uplifted by many great conversations both online and off. I also took some great pictures I'll have to share later.

T o m o r r o w
I hope to get a photoshoot of more flowers, trike around, oh yeah - for those of you who just started reading: I own a trike. I love it. It's an adult trike and doesn't look like the one you used to have as a kid.. unless you were really lucky.

I'm so annoyed about Tuesday.. Spam Evolution... Today's Ramble

Spam mails are a fetish of mine. I love how people phish and rat around for hits, email addies, and info - not love in the sense that I like when it happens to me - but love in the sense that it's evolving. The ghost in the machine smiles at me as I read through my bulk bin, eating spam up with my delete key.
The latest mail trend I've noticed is: "I'm so annoyed about ______", that blank filled in with a random day of the week. I count how many I get in a day, my various email accounts filling up like rain barrels during a Summer downpour. I used to hate it, and hate that I had to delete them.. or hate that I would get trapped by one. Yep, I've clicked on a link or two in my younger years, much younger years. When I first heard of Spam.. BBS's never had spam. I miss dailing in with my 14.4 downloading crappy jpgs and thinking it was the coolest, little QBasic programs.
I used to program QBasic... I miss it. So simple. I tried getting into VB, but found it to take too much attention in those days when I was hunting for the hairy hunk of flesh known as a boyfriend. Then I got into highschool and the Internet became more accessible. 14.4, bah, I got me a 28.8! RAD. I got me some Hotmail. Damn, I was hot shit getting the net first out of all my friends. I miss not being a slave to the net. I miss not knowing what LOL is and :) - I was a Super Highway virgin, now I'm a Net Junkie, ravaged by all the stuff crammed into my head every day. So much info.. so many people.
I see you, I see you in that car adjacent to me on the Super Highway, I live next to you in the Global Village. We all hate those pest home owners on the corner of the street that send us spam.. cooking BBQ's of Phish at night... and I don't mean the folk band. There goes the cybernetic neighborhood.. now moves in the Gore Mongers, now moves in the Pedos, now moves in the Anorexic Pride DIY sites and the terrorist planning complexes.. what the hell happened to our Global Village?
It's a mirror, so of course it's going to have beautiful support groups and cute baby animals, as well as pictures of people with their faces blown off and they're still breathing. We as humans frighten me sometimes, not because we look at harlequin babies with fearful eyes between fingers, but because so many people are surprised by the fact that there is so much darkness on the net. The good thing about this matrix neighborhood is that we can build firewalls around our swimming pools and picture windows, we can't do that in real life, damn municipal laws. I'd love to build huge concrete walls around my house... then I could safely lay naked in a hammock reading computer magazines and drinking a huge glass of privacy. I have very nosey neighbors that sit in their lawn chairs facing my house. Yeah. They BBQ really late at night, or should I say morning. Reminds me of the 'Burbs movie for some reason.
I'm not pointing fingies here, I'm as sick as I think I could be, I just keep it to myself. My true fetishes secret from everyone I know, just the way it should be. You got skeletons, tell your priest, your psychologist, your cat - but if you tell your friends, well then you've stopped being friends and started being in a whole new relationship... a group of naked apes - if you show me yours, I'll show you mine kinda thing. Privacy is golden. Keep your fetishes, religion, dark morals, and secretive murderous tendencies to yourself, and you'll have much better friendships in my vain opinion. I love the word Vain, Vanity.. like truffles on the tongue and down the throat... I am vain and arrogant. I am paranoid and suspicious of everything and the kitchen sink....

Although emphatically, my darkness does not break any laws, I try to stick on the right side of that line. I hate hurting people...

So while I listen to Charles Brown and Jimmy Smith on my internet radio, I try to forget how deeply twisted human beings can be, including me (maybe especially me), and sink into a bubble bath of blogs, friends' emails, Cute Overload, and online gaming. That's the good side of the neighborhood.

Ahh, it's good to climb out of a hole.

S T R E S S ? What the f*ck is that?

If you want people to leave you alone, tell them you're lonely.

I, as it happens, am starting to feel something akin to loneliness, and now that loneliness is becoming resentment and silly sardony. I don't hate anyone for clearing the area around me, I understand it, but I personally am the kind of person that mother-hens people to death.. whenever anyone is sick, I'm there like a sticky nurse. Well if it's serious. I research their drugs, the conditions, and try to help. Not everyone likes this of course. When people can be helped by me, I help.. it's not just a self-less thing, it's actually a control thing.. I want to make everyone feel good because I can't feel good. Well, not without drugs.. or.. well, the sweet kisses of a lover. I am single... for now. I've never been single for too long, I think Nature takes pity on my lack of physical pleasure.

Speaking of drugs, I am getting off the painkillers slowly again. Slowly as hell, since cold turkey is just retarded when you have fibro.. makes you worse (i've done it a couple times). Although I must say it's an Everest to quit the only thing you have that gives you physical pleasure (massages even hurt, but they help ease tense muscles). Food does it too, but I'm on a diet. Always with the diets. Anyways, it's hard. Why am I doing it? I am never going to be cured of this, unless science strikes a deal with the Ferengi-minded pharmaceutical companies to let a cure come out.. So why delay myself getting used to the fact that I am going to feel agonizing pain for all my life? These painkillers make me stoned, sleepier, and not to mention eat away my brain and what else do I have but my brain at this point?

Whatever.. I just can't afford to be alone. People frustrate the hell out of me.