Vigor rigor mortus

I feel as though all my energy for life has been sapped directly out of my soul.

I had dreams and desires once.

Now I feel what its like to be adult. To feel as though comfort is a shadow cast by the harsher light of reality.

To be told not to rely on anyone is such a slap in the face. As though I haven't earned the right to let myself lean a little on someone when I need it.

It's almost a bane, being so genuinely trusting of those I'm close to.

But I have to keep having faith in humanity. I can't stop believing that some day someone will say to me, hey, I'm sticking around, and it'll be the truth.

Its like, somehow, the level of stubbornness I have is exhausting, my ability to continually cope and thrive is bothersome. But then its even more bothersome when suddenly the weight of all that coping crashes down. I am left shallow, with nothing. I really have no confidant. When I was young I could trust and share so easily, but for so long I've been told or given the impression that my problems are not as important as yours. I will always be interrupted, second-guessed. And left in the dirt, a Christmas tree. Cut down out of the wild and dressed up to your liking, then left behind. You've taken me from my rough roots, you've seized me from my safe place, a condition which I can thrive and endure.

I am a stump. And I am a tree. And we are separated from ourselves, with no way back together again.

Curious

A pang, and there it is
A seed planted, and you are as unsuspecting
Innocent as the earth
What was once loose tilled flakes has something harder
Something warmer to hold on to
And worried,
Caressed like a tongue over cut lips
A new taste
Brought to the forefront of the mind
Watered
Blossomed
Into something strange,
But lovely.

Tommy Tse Thesis work

The process of these is getting more formulaic, finally. When I began, it was all just experimentation, but now its more like I know what I'm doing. It takes a little of the flavor out of it, but its nice to be able to pinpoint and perfect things.

Quality

I'm a little blown away by the difference in quality between my D70 and my 7D. The gradations and palettes are so much smoother! I'm really happy to be shooting with it for my thesis. Next step is to work out a better lighting system. I'm considering which new flash unit I'll be purchasing.

On a side note, I think I want to start making this blog a more renaissance type deal. I do a lot of different things, creatively, and that should reflect in this more personal compilation of work.

Here's some stuff I crocheted!





I've made a lot of other things, but I usually end up giving them away, or, in the case of my awesome hat, losing them, before I actually get them photographed properly. :(

I want to start improvising some more amirigumi animals, once I get the hang of them. The rabbit was based on a LionBrand pattern that I tweaked a little bit for a cuter look.

More updates on the thesis

Switched over to the Canon 7D to shoot these. I'm in love with this camera. I think the number 7 has to be in all the DSLRs that I really like. ... I may have just realized that the 7D looks like 70. As in D70, which was my original baby.

Loss and suffering.

How much loss can one human soul endure before it becomes a husk?
How much can be taken from a person before nothing is left?

Asking the question, how much worse can it get, its not supposed to be a dare.

Maybe there is a god, and she is called Earth. Certainly we have turned our backs on her, no wonder so many bad things happen to us.

I feel like I have moved into a stage in my life where I am so overly empathetic to the pain of those around me and of situations and mistakes that its too much to bear. I cry at the simplest things, and the complicated things. When a baby smiles at me. When my friend is terrified. When I can't make decisions about the future, and I just wait so long that the future passes me by.

Why does wanting only good things for people and for myself mean that bad things draw so near? Why is it that only when I am bitterly sad do opportunities seek me out?

I have locked myself into a strange place in this world. I make excuses about not being treated right. I just want one life problem solved at a time. I just want someone to have my back. But for some reason, all the people who would do that are still left at home. Its like the city is such a constructed artifice that all the people inside of it can't help but be the same.

I really wish everyone could just be themselves. I wish I could be myself. But I think that I am also trapped within the artifice. I want to go home. I want to go home and I want to stop being so worried and so sad and so abandoned. I want to take my clan and migrate like our ancestors, except I don't want to migrate to chase food, I want to chase and hunt happiness. Its not here anymore. Happiness has abandoned the East Coast. Only the stubbornly miserable remain.