I'm not in the greatest spirits tonight, so I'm rockin' the Billy Idol. Dancin' with myself, oh-oh-oh. With a rebel yell, she cried, "More, more more." More what? Don't ask me; just don't mess up my hair. And let's sink another drink, eh? Drinking Gekkeikan Sake and DeKuyper Sour Apple Pucker mixed with Diet Mountain Dew over here. What's your poison?

So I woke up this mornin', watched TMNT, went back to sleep until around noon, and then spent a good chunk of the day drawing. Started on a Karai but didn't like the way the sketch was going (I decided that I wanted a different/better pose), so I set that aside and started drawing...well, I'm not going to tell you. No; you're going to guess. If you care to, anyway. 😉 Here's your hint.

As you can see (partly), I finished the picture, scanned it in, and started coloring it on the computer. It's all going pretty quickly, thanks to the half-assed cartoon two-tone shading technique, so it should be done soon enough, whence I'll post it here. In the meantime, however, you'll have to use the snippet above to try and find out exactly who I drew -- but c'mon, it's not that hard. It's rather easy, actually. I bet Anon and Julie got it without a second glance. 🙂

So after finishing that picture I was pretty pleased with myself and started giving myself verbal encouragement and stuff -- like I do when I finish a good short story or an interesting Scary-Crayon feature -- when it dawned on me that despite my many talents, none of them are really good for much. Yeah, I can draw well enough, but it's not like I've ever gotten anything for my pictures (except for those two Spawn comics I won when I entered an art contest at a one-day hotel comic convention back in '93) -- I mostly just draw for my own enjoyment. And by "enjoyment" I mean "a stretch of time where I'm not reflecting upon how miserable my life is and how much I'd like to end it this second." And I can write, maybe, but it's not like anyone else wants to read my stories -- I can't seem to sell one despite my best efforts. And I can come up with some funny and interesting haikus and SC articles, but again, that's only for my "enjoyment" (and hopefully yours). Doesn't get me anything or bring me any closer to getting out of here. In fact, it anchors me here -- as seen in my dream a few nights ago, if SC weren't around I'd be one step closer to leaving all of this ennui and misery behind.

While making plans to hang out with an old high school pal next week, it dawned on me that this will be the first time I've hung out with anyone since September 2003. (Except for people in my family, but they don't count, and most of my interaction with them is decidedly unpleasant if not downright depressing.) And then today I got an AIM message from an old college acquaintance -- seems like I hear from her every couple of months and the conversation's always the same, with her trying unsuccessfully to convince me that my life is worth living and that it won't always be miserable, blah blah blah. I don't know how to explain it to them, but it's been fairly obvious to me -- for a long while now -- that nothing's going to get any better, at least not for me. But if you want to begin to understand it, head out to your local video store and pick up Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. And for a related digression, because I said I would...

Well well well, the old fashioned 17th century vampire, one of my faves.
You look for the good things in life, you posses a lot of classical class,
and follow that of the original vampires, you have no shame in what you are,
in fact you embrace it, you love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
Your wealth is unspeakable and your way of luring people with your mystical ways
and looks is amazing, and most people would often call you The Seductress.

What Kind Of Vampire Would You Be? (Cool answers, AND FOR GILRS UNLESS YOU ARE A CROSSDRESSER)!
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't quite think that fits me, but eh, and the quiz didn't have any graphics so I pulled one out from the archives. So where was I going with that? Ah, right, vampires. I've always identified with 'em, so perhaps the gothic inclinations aren't all that surprising. Even when I was little, I picked up on the fact that people treated me differently, and since I picked up I Can Read About Monsters from the library in the second grade I felt a closeness to the tragic creatures -- Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. -- depicted within the book's pages. When I watched Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Interview With the Vampire, I couldn't help but understand how the "monsters" in these films felt -- how it feels to have the heart and mind of a human (and sharper than that of most people, in the case of the latter) yet to be treated like something different, something less than human, simply because of one's appearance, or to be told that one is supposed to conform to what people expect from that appearance. And then "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" came along with its world of unique vampires -- because, let's face it, for all of the vampires that appear in Rice's Chronicles, there are really only one or two distinctive characters (if that many) among them -- and gave me a whole number of occurrences and reactions to which I could respond, "Yeah, I get that." Admittedly, I'm not a fan of movies and books where the vampires are cast as irredeemable villains or as ultra-flashy-cool heroes -- as one-dimensional stereotypes -- and even though the tortured vampire who turns away from evil and the taste of human blood has become something of a cliche in its own right in recent years, there's something noble in that, some truth there that the others lack. After all, vampires either have humans cursing them because of what they are -- and who the humans assume they must be, because of their vampiric blood -- or have humans and vampires alike approaching them and smiling at them because of what they are -- because they couldn't care a whit about who they are; they are vampires; that's all there is to it -- or have wicked vampires cursing them because of who they are -- because they are not who they should be, because of their vampiric blood. Who wouldn't be tormented and depressed after enduring centuries of that kind of treatment? Twenty-two years has been quite enough for me. I'm tired of it. I wish it would end.

If only it were as easy as waiting for sunrise.

Oh, and I added Amanda's link. Don't know why it took me so long to do that; it's not like I haven't been reading the blog for a while now. And as always, feel free to e-mail me if you've got any comments about the post, guesses regarding our mystery drawing, etc. Ja.