Hello, lovelies!

It has been a long time, and I'm very sorry. My life has been quite hectic for a while now.

Allow me to explain:
I spent all of last July in London with a theater class from my university. I think I left pieces of my soul there. I still don't think I've edited most of the literally 5,000 photos I took.

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In August, when I came back to the States, I discovered that I couldn't finish my theater minor because the university rescheduled my classes. This was sad. Actually, it was quite convenient. Without my theater minor, I could graduate after a semester. So, I convinced a professor to give me an independent poetry class to finish my minor, and I switched all the theater classes to fit my majors.

Broken DollMy face is a figurine's,
made of porcelain,
serene. I watch,
eyes open; mouth closed,
I listen. I am your
everything. I don't know
until after I fragment
in the heat of your fire
that I have become hollow.
I have nothing inside
but you, and you
have gone.      on the continuation of time.Head bent in prayer,
I touch the inside of my lips with my tongue,
in the hope that they will be there still.
The moon erodes, crumbles
into the sky, filling its velvet ink
with shining destinies, pinpricks of hope --
and I bay miseries to a fading memory.
The mist rising from the ground,
a ghostly apparition, constricts my chest,
restricts my breath into wordless,
worldless
song. In sun-strewn bars,
light leaks in, pale shadows
of a lovely embrace. The kiss of petals
on riverwater echoes across the valley
and dewdrops lie heavy
on my shoulderblades.
Spring has taken flight.
   


I graduated from uni in December with TWO - count them - TWO degrees! I have a Bachelor's of Arts in History and a Bachelor's of Arts in English with a Creative Writing minor.

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After graduation, I did stuff. Okay, I actually had a guy I'd been talking to for several months come visit me. It was four days of awful. Don't ask. But I had some fun around St. Louis, despite his presence. I don't think I've gone through all of those photos yet, either.

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The last week of December, I went to Wisconsin and Minnesota and my best friend's family took me to the Minnesota Wildlife Connection, where I was allowed to photograph some of the animals. Actually, my friend's family paid for me to shoot one animal (the little red fox), and I was allowed to photograph the coyote as a Christmas present from the owners. Best day ever. Also, cold. I still have some photos of them that I haven't submitted yet, but I didn't want to spam anyone with their wondrous cuteness, so I'm holding off.

        

         

January was incredibly dull. For some reason, my work did not schedule me the entire month. I guess this was okay because I was snowed in for two weeks and my Lyme Disease symptoms were terrible, but I needed the money. I started to apply to non-retail jobs, since I had two degrees and all. I didn't get out to take photos, and I kept feeling like I had papers to write and deadlines that I was missing.

Haiku of BoredomLost within myself,
Surrounded by blank, white walls;
I should paint them soon.     Winter Dreamsice dust drifts
from frozen sky;
delicate crystals
cascade, like silence,
into fog.
an enchanting death,
earth blending upwards
into heaven: all is
white, and nothing
has an end.     Lyme Disease: a Romance.tingling...
your breath on my hands,
kissing my knuckles -
they are numb.
your fingers glide along
my spine, find that place
between my shoulders and press,
wrapping vertebrae in hot embrace,
squeeze until I cry out,
dizzy with each new twist and pull.
you warp my back, massage
my knees and feet with knives.
I can't move, weak
in my resolve, I see
your sharp teeth.
I tingle,
and you drain my energy.

I have not finished editing photos I took in February or March because of reasons. Reasons being the gradual decay of my sanity, a complete overload of photos that I haven't gone through, and mostly laziness paired with the blessing that is Netflix. I spent a lot of time on Tumblr, though.

Here's my art Tumblr, if you want it: eclectictracy.tumblr.com/


Here's the fun part. I quit my job and bought TWO one-way plane tickets (actually, I didn't pay a cent for them because I got bumped from my flight to St. Louis from Minnesota). One was to Houston, where I visited some family for a week. The other was to California, where I have moved in with my very obliging grandparents and have started looking for jobs here because there are more opportunities than back in St. Louis. I have a lot of photos to go through already, and I've only been in California 3 weeks.

                            

My internet connection is TERRIBLE here, so I'm not sure how frequently I'll get to submit photos. But I am alive, don't worry.

To this date, I have applied for over 70 jobs. Of these, I have received one inquiring email and two interviews. I have not gotten a job yet, but I would like to continue to refuse to go back to retail (not because retail is bad but because I "don't have experience" for the non-retail work I want to do, and I won't have experience unless I can get something else, but I think no one will hire me because I don't have experience, so I can't get experience, and I would love to go volunteer somewhere like a library or museum to get experience, but I need to work to afford the gas to volunteer). I am trapped in a Catch-22 of education vs. experience vs. work, and I'm getting very discouraged.

Feel free to share your life/art/experiences in the comments, and please feel free to send me notes whenever you want. I will try to respond as soon as I can. I wish I could have featured more artists than I did, but my internet connection was so bad that it would only really load my work, so I apologize.


Thank you for following, and I hope you have a wonderful day/week/month/life.







P.S. If you know of any non-teaching job opportunities which a former cashier with English and History degrees, an elementary reading comprehension of Middle English, and intermediate Spanish skills might qualify for, please let me know.

Greetings, my wondrous followers. I bring you some excellent news.

I am going to LONDON.

For a month.

There will be pictures (as if you expected otherwise).

Stand by for awesome.

Greetings, my wondrous followers. I bring you some excellent news.

I am going to LONDON.

For a month.

There will be pictures (as if you expected otherwise).

Stand by for awesome.

I have actually done a hands feature before; apparently, I like them.

I'm desperately trying to spread Lyme Disease awareness, but I want to do it in a way that doesn't just say, "Hey, this exists!" Lyme Disease is a very, very serious and painful illness - so I'm going to do a series of features related to some of its symptoms.

Hands are so important. We do so many things with them.
My hands suffer from Lyme. The palms of my hands swell and hurt; the tops of my hands, between my joints, swell and are sensitive to the touch. The joints in my fingers ache, and my fingers swell so that I cannot get rings on and off. Sometimes my hands tingle, like I have lost circulation. Sometimes they burn. When I first got sick, my hands would become suddenly so weak that I couldn't press a button on the television remote control, or I would drop what I was holding. Sometimes when the palms or joints swell, I still can't hold things. The swelling and pain is random; it comes and goes, and there's no way to predict it.

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I hope you like the feature!

Previous Lyme-Related Feature: fav.me/d4oxdea
Previous Hands Feature: fav.me/d3v4nw8

I found these in my favorites.

I think I've mentioned before that I have Lyme Disease, and that it causes swelling around my joints, particularly in my back. In the last 6 hours, my back went from being just fine - I could feel my spine all the way up and down - to being completely swollen. I could feel it change, and I felt like crying. I've been using ice packs for hours trying to bring the swelling down. This is putting a cramp in my schoolwork/school/work/life.

I feel like an old building breaking down. From the moment of birth, our bodies begin to decay. I'll be 24 next month - almost two years of Lyme Disease.



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Mature Content

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lyme is an ignored wordit's not worrying, to the doctors;
that grinding of your thumb into your hand
like a nervous tick, the shifting
from foot to less swollen foot. fear burning
like the hot steering wheel massaging your palm
bringing pain to relieve pain; temporary
scars on the lifeline, swollen:
back, hands, feet, knees. brain
bugs crawling in imaginary directions
aching to get out
stretch
move, dance
like you feel human. a small thing,
parasite, darkness, just
a day on skin still twenty-three,
even if twenty-three is a struggle like eighty. Abandoned HouseWarped old bones, bowed knees curve
to age, nature's way of breaking down
everything that's been built up;
arthritic old body, aching with the
cold and sleepy with the heat – still here.
Gray and bleary-eyed, windows
battered by storm, mind collecting dust
and tidbits of all of the lives lived here.
An extra creak from the roof as it sags
with its own weight, like a man who's seen
too much of the wrong thing. Timeless,
not like a classic car or an old movie, but china
cabinet trinkets played with by grandchildren
who never really forget. Every year, something
new: shutters, tile, wallpaper over
wallpaper, garage on the side. Now, only
the attic is full, packed with boxes and cobwebs,
the rest of the rooms left to echoes
of all the stories heard.


     




I hope you've enjoyed the features! I love all of these wonderful artists!
Yes, I do realize I began and ended this feature with my own art, but I made this feature to try to make myself feel better, and it kind of worked (emotionally, not physically). So I just hope to share the love.



Lyme-themed Blog Entry (an overview): eclecticlikefurniture.blogspot…
2nd Lyme-themed Feature (Hands): fav.me/d5dx9al