Tag: memoir

if you’re gone

he was my muse
my favorite thing to draw
the only face
i wanted to see
he was my burden
my obstruction
the thing i ran away from
every other day
he was my savior
the only one who ever believed in me
he was my daily reminder
that one day i would lose
everything
everything that ever mattered
i only wanted him
after i had thrown him away
i only let myself love him
after i had lost him.

i don’t know what year this journal entry was from…maybe 1994? 1995? the poem(ish) is from today because every song is reminding me of him…again.

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just me & my memoir

i put up another page of my memoir in progress, don’t tell, over on tumblr.

like my art journal, this memoir is a way for me to exorcise some demons. right now it is not really formatted…i am just ranting about what is on my mind for the day. connecting it all together, in the way i think it fits.
so it’s a mess. which is true to my history.

in this self-portrait, i have long hair. fun fact, for my first child, before my second pregnancy, i was guilty of having the mom bob. i had long hair for my first pregnancy because i just always pictured it that way…plus dusty wanted the long hair on me.
but then i had a baby that wouldn’t stop pulling my hair.
i freak out when my hair is pulled.
so i got a mom bob.

then i got pregnant again. had an identity crisis about being a stay-at-home mom. started wearing doc martin boots and shaving off my hair.

but for a brief time in my life. i did have long hair.

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memoir in progress

i started working on a memoir over on tumblr (link is on the right hand side there… “meet me in the sunroom”)

i am writing it on tumblr because, frankly, i fit in better with the hopeless romantics over there…the open hearts & injured souls. i get more of a response over on tumblr than i do here. i mean, i totally appreciate y’all who do read me, but there just aren’t very many of you.

so i will keep this as my “website” for business (if that ever happens) purposes…but i might start doing my ranting over on tumblr.
i am trying to decide if i should delete my blog & just keep my artwork up? we’ll see.

anyhoo. in more efforts to exorcise demons, talk to ghosts, and figure myself out, i have started a memoir about seymour and myself. i used a stock photo of matt dillon to do this quick portrait. it doesn’t look like either one of them…but it does what i need it to do.

that’s all for now.
xxoo.

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my first comic

okay. my very first comic was a soap opera based on the nursery rhyme “hey diddle diddle.” i would draw it on a chalkboard in the basement of the house i grew up in. there are not actual pages. i erased before doing the next page. but i assure you–it was amazing and proof of my undiscovered status as a child prodigy.

my first comic that i can actually share with y’all was a neurotic comic based on my own experiences in love & relationships. i started writing it in the late ’90s. i was living in a one bedroom apartment with my dog norman. we were right near the bar i waited tables at by day and would go to at night to drink & watch bands. i moved into this apartment about a month after i married my ex-husband.
i met him.
we eloped in tennessee.
i moved in with him.
he told me he didn’t think he loved me after all.
i threw up.
i moved out.
i started this comic.
confusion perfume
it starts out pretty goofy & light…or lightly dark…um…sepia? but then morphs into an experiment where i see what stories of mine i can turn into comics (testing my theory that anything can be a comic)

i have made a page for it on my website here: confusion perfume. i am afraid the print might be kind of small. having had “serious” comic book man friends who told me the “right” way to do comics, i did the originals on large board & then had them shrunk down at a professional printer. these days you’re lucky if my art is on real paper & scanned rather than half-assedly photographed before i share it with you.

so! if y’all are like, “we can’t get enough of the inner workings of quixotic mama’s neurosis and relationship history…”

but is is kinda cool to note, for future biographical historians of mine, that this was when i first started seriously drawing again after having given up drawing in favor of fiction writing when i was 13.

note–confusion perfume is fiction based on me & my experiences. it is not straight-up memoir. some of this stuff is made up…some is true…i won’t tell you which is which…. okay, i probably would if you asked. i am terrible at keeping secrets.

(i think i have it so the print can be read now–let me know if there is a problem.)

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bigger than the beatles

i’ve been thinking a lot about “letting go.”
i let go of you the minute i saw you behind the bar cleaning your brand new belly button piercing. you were gorgeous.
it wasn’t even a conscious thought. it was a reflex. perfect people don’t want me. i’m damaged. i’m trouble. i’m too much work & not pretty enough for it.
so i didn’t give you a second thought. a neurotic thought. instead i just talked to you. acted as if i had nothing to lose. because i had nothing to lose. a girl like me would never get a chance to lose a boy like you.
so i let go. i never thought–ever–of you as someone who could fall in love with me…so i never fell in love with you.
instead.
we became friends.
& you were the best of friends.
god you were so much fun.
& then you fell for me.
why? why did you fall for me? why me? when you are perfect & beautiful & not damaged…why would you fall for someone like me?
i am none of those things.
& i had already let you go because it doesn’t make any sense.
any sense at all.
that someone like you would fall for someone like me.

we liked to say
that we were bigger than the beatles.
& when things were good
i believed we were unstoppable
but that damaged part of me
that damaged part
was just waiting for the day you would leave me
one way or another
i knew that day would come
so i kept letting go
over & over & over
hurting both of us in the process….

after i lost you
of course
i kept letting go. over & over i “let go” of you.
over & over.
except
i couldn’t
turns out
i never let go of you at all
& i never will.

i thought loving you made me weak
i have never been
more wrong.

update…i found a drawing i did of this photograph–done from the photograph–back in a journal from 1995/96. so i remembered the photograph slightly wrong.
but my sentiment still stands.

petejournal6

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in case you didn’t notice…page 2

this is page two of my experimental tell-all art journal memoir.
i can’t tell if i like it or not.
it’s a good story. i would like to explore telling this story.
i’m just not sure that this is the way i want to tell it.

(here’s page one)

in case you didn't notice2

so keep on playing around with it…see what happens.

i have gotten an underwhelming amount of stuff done while my minions are gone. unless you are impressed by how many netflix shows i have binge-watched?

last night i spent between 4 and 5 hours cutting up my lambs and getting them into the freezer. i am not good at cutting meat. poor things have been butchered twice now. but it’s done!
now i need to see if i can figure out how to clean & tan a hide.
another thing i am procrastinating.
and
perfect weather…but i have not tapped my trees.

ugg.

i’m feeling a bit useless.
so much art to do. so much homesteading.
and i just want to have a beer & watch jessica jones and mope about unrequited love while ogling david tennant.

sigh.

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in case you didn’t notice

page one of chapter one
of my tell-all memoir
art journal
i have done sylvia plath
i have done vincent van gogh
now i am going to give
anais nin
a whirl.

is this going to work? are you intrigued or are you all, “meh”? not that it matters what you think because i think we all know i’m going to draw/write whatever the fuck pops into my head whether it’s popular or not….
still….
i’m wondering…should i try to keep it as close to memoir as possible–filling in the blanks & bulking up the dialogue etc. within reason? OR–or or or–should i just go “fuck it” and add fairies & demons, squid & flying whales?
honestly, i’m leaning toward option two.

also. i am working on more moses jones.
and thinking about just doing art journals for characters instead of me.

my cogs are turning.
let’s see if we go anywhere.

edit…so i kind of fucked around with the original and made it look better–to me. you can let me know what you think. you know. if you wanna.
here’s how it looked before:

in case you didnt notice p1

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