Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by sheer honesty, or you think me having my own opinions is "being negative", then this is not the place for you, and I suggest you leave and head elsewhere. I call a spade a spade, and I don't sugarcoat anything.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Bittersweetness

Well, on a positive note today, I did get my sketchbooks. But it wasn't exactly the reunion I was hoping for. One book is from 1988, but most of it is unusable for the site. It's so obscure, I even forgot I wrote it!! Most of it is nothing but nature/animal reviews. One story that is in it has some potential, I need to tweak it a bit, with some of Cathy's help because I think she wrote the story. But it is unfinished. So, I need to have her dig in her memory bank and see if she can remember how the story is supposed to go. It's about a young woman named Maxie (who I later changed to Misty) who is horse-riding along in a forest by a river when she almost runs over a baby sifaka. The story has potential, but like I said, it needs some tweaking, and needs to be finished. A lot of my stories depict people on horseback, especially from this era, because back then, that was my most favorite pastime. I always LOVED horseback riding!!! But did it more back then.

The other book is from 1989, and it does have the story I wanted to use. But it too needs some tweaking, and an ending. That was commonplace back then for me to begin a story, lose interest in it, and not finish it. Again, I have to dig back into my own memory bank and try to remember how I wanted that story to end. I re-wrote the story in 1994, when Mushmouth came back from a long vacation, so I might can go on that. These I will work on, first chance I get, and will put them up on the site. They should be seen! They both have quite a bit of potential! But I am afraid the rest of the stories in these books are unusable. Either they are bits and pieces of scenes, or they are too much like other stories (or TV shows) that inspired them. Though a great deal of my stories are influenced in some way by stories, or shows that were trending at the time, they are still mostly my own ideas put together. Like in some of my stories from 1995, Beavis and Butthead were a big thing with me, and in some ways, you can see the affect they had on my stories of the time. Stupidity was the key factor there. People LOVE stupidity in cartoons, stories and TV shows, so I capitalized on that.

But unfortunately, I did not get back the books from earlier in 1988. I guess Sam did not have them! :( The book that has the story of how Martin met Genny is gone forever. I guess I didn't throw them away in the same trash can and so no one rescued that story. But hey! That's OK. Trisha has a copy, and I have it on the website. But I look at these stories from long ago, and I look at my drawings today, I improved 1000%!!! I remember back in middle school, there was this boy named Jason Ellis, who was one of those kids who bullied me throughout my last year in middle school. Thank GOD he did not go to my high school!!! Anyways, I remember he always knew me as the girl who drew pictures of dogs, but did not do them very well in his eyes. Some people loved my drawings, but he did not. Not at all! LOL! One day I was doodling on my notebook, and Jason came up to me and said "You're still drawing those dogs! God they don't look so good!" Well, he was entitled to his opinion, so I just didn't say anything. But I always wondered why, if he did not like my drawings, did he even bother to look. But hey! That's a person's right. But looking back on these drawings I did in 1988 and 89, I can actually see what Jason meant!! LOL! My drawings were crappy! Even I think so now, looking at these. But I will keep them anyways. They are a piece of UMG history.

I was thinking back to my turning point in my drawing, and remembering how I got better over the years. I think I got better when I got away from drawing mammals, and turned to drawing other things, like birds, and even dinosaurs. Then came the animals of the future. That was my big turning point. These are animals that do not exist today, so no one can look at them and say "this animal is not supposed to look like this" or something to that effect. These are animals I created, so they can look any way I want them to look! And really, each year even that changes as I learn more about evolution. I don't know, Sam might even have those books, but perhaps he just doesn't want to let them go. They were better creations. I might ask him that, but I don't know. I don't think he'll answer, he probably just wants to get rid of me now. LOL!

Well, on a bad note, my sis needs help. She called me this morning crying, and not feeling too good. She was thinking about Odessa again, and one of her best friends in the building has moved out. I know how she feels! I've lost friends before too. I hope she is able to still contact her through Facebook. But I remember growing up and either having good friends move away, or us move away from them. I never got over this one move we made and I lost my Brownie and Girl Scout troup friends. Only to move to a rotten neighborhood with rotten kids who sucked donkey balls!! The worst thing about that is that is where I had to go to middle school and high school at, so from 3rd grade to high school, I was miserable!! But now, my sis's best buddy in that building has moved out, and it makes her all the more sad. And I am not there to help her in person. As for Odessa, that is something that I cannot help. She just needs more time to get used to the fact she is not there anymore. But I know how that feels too. I had a hard time learning to cope after I lost Groucho. It takes a while.

I remembered dogs I've lost in the past, and the one that came to mind was Hutchess. I was so pensive after I lost her to parvo, it was 5 years before I could even say her name. Before that time, I mostly just referred to her as "that dog I had that died of parvo", or I would just not talk about her. But that's how bad I was. Pretty much the same after I lost Groucho. I had a pic of Groucho and Odessa together that I planned to use for Christmas cards in 2006, but Groucho died that year, so I could not even look at that picture anymore for a LONG time! Much less turn them into Christmas cards. My mama thinks I should not even have pets, because we get so depressed when they die on us. I told her it would be no different than if we had kids that something bad happened to. But you live, you go on, you get a new dog, and start all over again. I for one, cannot live without a pet. That's just me. They become my children. Just NO cats!! LOL! I'd never be that fricken desperate for a pet!!!

No comments: