Deviant art

http://tessitore.deviantart.com/

I completley forgot about it. I need to take pictures of my recent art and post it.

I want to hear you laugh like you really mean it.

I'm having mama issues again. Whether or not they are in my head I'm trying to figure out. I feel like I'm in the middle of that fucking divorce again. Like I have a judge looming up in front of me going, "Now, Teigra, where would you like to live? With your mother, or your father?" This brings back memories, not all bad, and not all good, of my childhood.

As a background, my mother wants me to come out to Missouri again to work in her failing company for four months. Most of it is explained in the e-mails, so I'm just going to post them. I'm crying again for the millionth time because of this, and I can't help that this is making me feel like shit, feel like slime.

-----------------
August 21st:

Teigra-

I know you are having a hard time with this decision. I know that right now all you want is to push ahead full throttle with your life there in California. I also know that if my dad called me when I had just moved here in 1997 and asked me to come back to California I would have had a hell of a time deciding what to do. The same would be true if it was vice versa with my mom.

Right now, my body is completely failing to keep up with me. I can’t even do housework these days, Dave handles most or all of it, along with the cooking, but when I do anything I’m either tired or dizzy and either way I just have to sit or lay down. My primary fear is this…if I do not have someone to go out on cleanings, and ultimately train replacement workers…my business will completely shut down in the next month. And it is very hard for me to walk away from what has become a decently profitable business. We are at 50% of my old net salary and that will be enough to make ends meet until I have had the baby and recovered IF I can stay in business that long.

Bethany and Pascha have agreed to give me one more week, which means their last day will be on September 8th. I have one new one, Melissa, who just began her training yesterday and the initial reports are good. But for the business to stay in business, I need two more additional bodies trained, and ready to go in two weeks. And considering I can’t do any of the training (exhaustion, etc) I’m in a very, VERY bad spot. I need someone I can trust to take over the training and the cleaning and keep me in business for the next few months.

That is my situation in a nutshell.

And just so we have it in writing, here is what I am offering you:

A plane ticket here ($150 or more)
Your license reinstated (hopefully not an enormous amount of money)
An hourly wage of $11.00/hr/job for cleaning, gas paid for, or $13.00/hr/job for training.
Your rent, utilities, and food paid
Your bill w/Longview paid ($300+)
Your choice of either a plane ride back or the Taurus fixed up to make the trip

All of that, so that I stay in business. Because without you, or someone like you, I truly don’t think the business will survive during my down time.

If it doesn’t work out, if we start clashing, what do we do? Give me two weeks’ notice and I will give you a plane ticket back to California. You will get to keep whatever benefits have accrued to that point (such as: I may have paid $100 on your student loan and reinstated your license). Does that make sense? Ask me if you have questions and I will try to answer.

Love, Mom

p.s. You may feel that you owe your dad for sending you a plane ticket, but keep in mind how much help you have been in the last two months to him in regards to daycare for Vanessa. A plane ticket couldn’t cost half as much as having to PAY for all of that childcare would have cost him. Also please keep in mind that even when I have made things look effortless, by simply buying something for you or making sure you had what you needed when you were growing up, it was by no means effortless. It also does not make it any ‘less’ because I did not go without to do so. I could have gone without debt (quite literally in the tens of thousands and years worth of payments ahead) and given you nothing. I also made a decision that I would work for companies, so that I could give you the life I felt you deserved. Your dad and I have both made decisions on how we wish to live and the level of emotional and financial contribution that we wish to dedicate to our children’s lives. I am not the least bit sorry that I made those decisions, you deserved to have a decent childhood (in the areas I had control over) and to have your basic needs fulfilled. I hope that someday, all of that will be very, very clear to you when you become a parent and wife.

-----------------------

August 23rd:

The last part of our discussion has stuck with me ever since we ended the phone call last night. You said that, after all the factors were weighed, it came down to money. If you could make money in California, then that is where you were going to stay. If that is the deciding factor, then your answer is quite clear. You can make money anywhere, California or here.

Dave said to me that I was taking this out of context, and maybe I am. Maybe I am also overly sensitive of how you feel you owe your father for one plane ticket, after I have supported you financially for nearly your entire life. Or that you continue to focus on one horrible day between us instead of doing what I thought we had both done two months ago—talked it over, agreed that we both have different memories of the event, realized we had both made awful mistakes, and moved on. For all I know, maybe in the back of your mind you blame me for what happened to you with ‘him’. I wouldn’t blame you for that, I hate myself for failing to see what was happening for so long.

Perhaps I fixated on you being here not so the business would survive, but because I wanted the comfort our closeness had always given me. Every day my body and soul are tired, I’m terrified of losing what I have spent the last few months building, and I desperately want my energy back and the baby to be born. In the hardest times of my life, I had you, and I would look at you and know that was enough, that together we would survive. And for these difficult next few months, with all of the exhaustion and joy, I thought of you and how it would feel to share it with you. But the closeness I thought we had, even friendship, you made clear last night was either all in my mind or clearly one-sided.

Again, I may be overly sensitive, but last night’s talk did not make me feel better, it made me feel like a failure.

Whatever happens with the business, it’s my problem, and Dave’s, not yours. It will succeed or fail, on my abilities (or present lack of them) alone. I should have never asked you for help or involved you in my problems. From all accounts, I thought you had no money and no job and that, while it would be difficult to come back here to Missouri, the benefits to that journey would be enough at the end of four months. If you had had a job that I knew was bringing in money, or an apartment you had just moved into, I would never have asked. But I think that at this point I should save you the indecision and discomfort of having to say no to me, and I know I need to save myself from any more heartbreak.

You seem to remember only the bad. God, how I wish you remembered even some of the good. I tried so hard, and I have loved you so very much. But it just wasn’t enough.

After we got off the phone and I burst into tears for the thousandth time in the last week Dave looked at me and said, “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea”. He’s trying desperately to be the rock right now, and I can see the toll it’s taking on him. Despite that, he has supported every decision I have made, and stepped in as much as possible to alleviate the pressure I feel. And, despite my longing to see you, to have your presence in my life when I am feeling so damn depressed and sick, I guess he is probably right. So, I’ll make this easy on you--I won’t be calling on Friday. I think we both know what your answer has been all along. If I’m wrong, I’m sure you will let me know.

-----------------

Le sigh.

I wrote a reply, and I'm thinking very hard about sending it. But honestly, I don't see why I shouldn't. Still, I am worried about the consequences.

Then again...

Be damned the consequences.

-----------------

August 23rd:

I'm doing now what I never do, what I swear not to do, for both our sakes. I'm replying to your e-mail immediately after reading it. I'm letting my emotions carry me.

Honestly, this is exactly what I was talking about. I can't say a damn thing without you taking it out of context. You act like the victim, like this was undeserving. Like you never realized that your actions would have consequences.

Yes, you have apologized to me over and over again. Yes, I have accepted your apologies. That does not mean that some of our history has never happened. That does not mean that you have not betrayed me, many times before now. Many, many times.

Mom, I remember you pulling me out of the car by my hair when I was still going to Gladdan. I remember you kicking me in the ribs for not cleaning my room fast enough. I remember you screaming at me countless amounts of times for things that I could not help. I remember you making me feel so small, I remember you making me feel like I was a piece of shit on the underside of your shoe. I remember crawling into a corner of my room, turning off the lights, pulling a blanket over my head and crying because you had made me feel so horrible.

Mom, I remember you taking me to the movies. I remember us going to Applebee's and having a blast. I remember cuddling up to you on the couch and kissing you and scratching your scalp with my hands. I remember when we went to get Dixie, I remember going garage saling with you. I remember being able to crawl into your bed whenever I had a nightmare, I remember you pulling your arms around me and cuddling into me. I remember you saying that you loved me. And I do love you, I really do.

I know I need to get over it. I know that I need to just accept that you are a human being just like me, and human beings make mistakes. But you are more then just another person to me, you are my mother. I love you, because you are my mother.

Yes, I remember the good times. God, I remember the good times, I remember them all the time and tell people about them. Why do you think Bev told you "Your daughter appreciates you more then she lets on"? I've been telling her about all the good times. I tell my father about the good times, I tell my sister about the good times.

I REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES.

You seem to think that I am such a weak-minded individual that I can be influenced in my love for you by someone’s STORIES. I will never stop loving you. I will NEVER stop loving you.

You don't seem to realize how much this decision has been tearing me apart. You also don't seem to realize how much I just needed to get off the phone so I could think about it.

If this is the way you see me as a daughter, then I'm glad that you have made it apparent. I don't hate you, even if I may have said it a few times.

Now, so that we get the record straight;

When you kicked me out of the house, you had David take my keys away, you closed down my bank account, and as far as I knew I was not welcome back. In fact, as I was backing out of the driveway YOU WERE TRYING TO THROW SHIT AT ME! In a letter you even acknowledged, "Yes, I wanted to hurt you and the Taurus." Now, there's a line there that should never be spoken from a mother to a daughter: I wanted to hurt you.

I was just re-reading some of your letters and even though you asked for an apology, you did NOT state that you would let me come back if I did. As I saw it: Apologize for what? Apologize for disagreeing with you? Apologize for having emotions like every other human being?

You cut me off, you threw me out. YOU THREW ME OUT. If you were trying to make it apparent that I could come back, you didn't try hard enough. That is NOT a message that can be relayed through other people, it was a message that you should have given me yourself and you DID NOT. I did not know until I had a plane ticket and was about to leave that I could have apologized and came back. I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS AN OPTION.

Maybe I just wasn't reading the signs properly, but this should have been something that was made more then apparent to me.

Now, I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you that these things happened. I'm not going to waste my time mourning that we didn't work things out while I was still there. I'm not going to waste my time trying to teach a pig how to sing.

What happened happened, and I'm much the better for it. I'm finally where I want to be, after four years of trying to get here.

The thing is, mom, I just never felt like you had any faith in me. And I feel like you have taken me for granted. I tried to do everything I could to make you happy. I thought I made you happy, but apparently I did not.

And I'm realizing now that I don't really need to make you happy to be happy. Yes, I always want you to be happy, but it's not something I need to influence directly. I love you mom, but I can't be there any more. I can't have that relationship with you that we used to have.

Yes, we had a great, wonderful, beautiful relationship. But I don't know if we have it any more.

Now, you can take this letter like you will. I wasn't in any way trying to be diplomatic or considerate. I was just writing down what I felt. If you hate this letter, if you think that I'm a greedy, selfish horrible child because of it, then so be it. This is what I think, and I can't change that.

-Teigra-

I touch the place where I'd find your face.

I found one of my new favorite albums today. Snow Patrols "Eyes Open". I've been in love with Snow Patrol for the last two years, but I really like this new album. I hadn't heard it yet because when it was released... I was homeless, and thereby broke. Anyway, I took the broke way out again and got it off a friend for free.

I love getting free stuff.

All right, I have good news and bad news. Now it's which one to tell first.

Hm...

Bad News: Dad's landlord got fed up with excuses today and told my dad to pack up his shit and get the hell out.

Explanation: Now, this has happened before and Dad has always managed to smooth it out by putting money under this guys nose. We're hoping to do this again, but it was a major freak-out this morning.

Good News: Teigra has made $100. Squee. I actually made it by helping my father out with the whole landlord business and doing sales for him. My first sale portion is $100, so now I may go forth and buy... cigarettes. And condoms*.

*Because for the first time since my sexual awakening--I've run out! Shit. Condoms are my way of supporting the boy scouts "be prepared" motto.*

The rest (of the money) will be put into my pillowcase for safekeeping. Yes, I consider that safekeeping. Anyway, I need to save up some money so I can open a checking account on my eighteenth birthday. Which is--GASP!--10 days away.

BA BA BA BOOM.

I tried to buy a pack of cigarettes today but I was carded. Blasted cashiers. I'm a bad, bad girl, but I was woken up with, "My landlord is going to kick me out."

So I needed some nicotine.

Luckily, the kindly neighbors down the road (who don't know I'm their neighbor) let me bum one from them. It was a light, but it tasted wonderful and did a fabulous job of calming me down.

I really need to quit, but I really don't want to right now. However, it is amazing that I can spend five days (with the exception of ONCE) without a cigarette. It’s really the weekends on which I smoke.

However, this doesn't keep me from thinking about them an awful lot.

I found out yahoo.com really does not like me doing that whole... business thing. They killed my account because I was sending out "spam". They define spam as a bunch of e-mails that say the same thing. That shows me for using a free account.

I spit on them.

I feel completely drained yet extremely frisky right now. I want to go on a run but I'm afraid I'm going to upchuck. I've only eaten one meal today and not a very good one at that. I need some fruit. I need to run.

Running makes me feel better. It cleanses me.

I don't know what to do about my mother. She is wholly and completely convinced that she's a wonderful person and has always been a wonderful mother. The other day my friend Nikki and I wracked our brains trying to think of one--ONE--person that honestly liked my mother. We couldn't think of any. What we could think of was a whole heap of people that didn't like her.

Where there's smoke there's fire, I say. I don't know what to think about her, or her proposition any more. I admit the money would be nice, really nice, but I don't know if I can take it there. She asks me to explain why I don't want to be there and I really can't put it into words. Maybe it’s her, maybe its not. Maybe it’s just the house. Maybe it’s the town, the people in it, or how I react to it.

All I know is that I'm really digging in my heels here. There are many good reasons for me to go back for four months, but I really don't want to.

One things for certain though; my mother blames me for the entire ordeal. She says that if I had "just apologized" then I could have come back to the house. Apologize for what, mom? Disagreeing with you? No.

Oh shit, I'm getting angry again. God damn it, I hate this. Thinking of her always makes me feel this way.

I want to say that I should "Come to terms with hating my mom", but the problem is and always has been that a part of me loves her. I wish that I could just say I hated her and be done with it, but I can't. Fuck.

Well, that's all I can really think of. I keep wandering off to other websites and then thinking, "Wasn't I doing something". Honestly my hearts not in it this evening. Forgive me.

Toodles,

-Teigra-


Snow Patrol,
Eyes Open
Track 08,
"Set the Fire to the Third Bar"


I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from here to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My finger in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have traveled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

And miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
and I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

You can have all of the carry-on baggage

I bet you're all wondering what in the world has been happening to little lady Teigra. Yeah, I bet.

Well, when I re-read this blog in a few months or years, I will wonder what's been going on. The best way to describe it has already been described in an e-mail to anothermonkey, so instead of repeating myself, I will copy and paste myself.

----

No, everything is really not going well for me right now. Right now, I've just moved to a place I barely remember, where I only have hazy, foggy memories of my blissful childhood. And everything is far, far from blissful right now.

I decided I was going to be going to work for my father, and that's been working out okay except for the fact that I haven't been able to make any sales yet. My father called me an hour ago and announced that his computer, our one and only true way of roping in customers and doing what we need to do to make the business flourish, has completely crashed. The rent is due and it's $450. My father has $300 in the bank account. He was stiffed by a client just recently. But now we've got to figure out IF we can get someone in to repair the computer, and drain the only funds we have left.

We're running out of food, running out of supplies (for making models), and we're running out of sanity. Or I am running out of sanity. I bought a pack of cigarettes the other day, something that I vowed never to do again, and now am regretting that I spent that money. At the same time, I'm looking longingly towards a few moments of sweet sanity later this evening when I am re-united with my pack once again.

Every time I sit down to really get some work done someone calls, someone drops in or something happens that interrupts me. All of my friends and family from Missouri like to drop in on exactly the same time and talk my ear off for hours and hours. This would be fine if it were a singular event, but it happens over and over again. I can't stand three hour long conversations with five different people. I can't do it.

This computer situation is driving me absolutely mad. I feel like I'm worthless and can't do anything right, and that everything is going wrong at the same time.

So yes, if you've felt like something has happened, something has happened. It has absolutely nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I'm stressed beyond all possible possibilities and I'm taking it out on people that don't deserve it. So I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry.

Honestly, I just need to loose myself for a while. I want to curl up in a bottle or wrap myself around a plume of smoke and pretend I'm not Teigra any more. I want to close my eyes and make it all go away. I want arms around me. I want comfort. Something that has all but disappeared from my life.

And I miss that, I really do.

I don't know how to answer your statements, I don't know what to say to make it all better. I sensed it too when I looked at your e-mails but I had no strength to come up with anything soothing. I want to be able to, I want to be able to tell you that everything is OK, but I'm tired right now. I'm unbelievably, mind-numbingly tired.

First of all, the pictures of my snake will involve my littlest one, Cero, consuming a whole pinky mouse. If you don't want to see it, well... don't. They will be the last set of pictures, as I'm very kind to everyone.

Both of my snakes are corn snakes, one male and one female.

So first off, new pictures of me:









Next are pictures of Mordred, my eldest snake, male. Creamsickle.









And lastly, the pictures of my beautiful baby girl snake, who is a "regular" breed:

He had a voice that was strong and loud

This morning I woke up in a very "Ra, Ra, kill the world, Ra, Ra." Kind of a mood. No, I really don't know why. You remember those slips here and there that I might be manic depressive? Yeah, well, we never know on these things, right?

I mean, I haven't been to see a shrink since I was thirteen. And he said it was obvious I was very disturbed and needed to be doped up and tossed in a clinic as soon as possible.

Back to this morning: I didn't get a damn. thing. done. all. day.

Which has put me in a very relaxed and happy way of thinking right now, which is very good. I like being relaxed and happy.

However, I did get an enormous amount of writing done, and that served me very well. Not writing in the new manuscript draft or anything, but writing in an angsty poetry kind of way, and drawing strange tribal designs all over my black moleskin book. I need some white out, though, so I can do it on the covers. That would be extremely nifty.

V is starting to really not like my moods as a writer, because I keep pissing her off with no regrets to it. And then when she responds, thinking that she'll pin me in some corner where I will realize "how horrible of a sister I've been", I end up shrugging it off. Annoys the little tyke to no end, but has me laughing uproarisly in my head.

Why? Because I am an unforgiving, frigid bitch when I'm in a writing mood. God help you if you turn on a TV too loud. God help you if you turn on the TV at all, like V found out today when I exploded on her about watching Ed, Edd and Eddy. The same episode, for the fifth time.

Though she has been reading a lot more recently it's only been those manga books that she gets at the library. Harry Potter is being read aloud to her, but she still isn't picking up any actual chapter books, and I wish she would. I love manga and all, but its not the only thing in the world, and she frankly doesn't understand many of the themes in the books anyway.

You can't lead a horse to water, you know?

Though she has been drinking quite a bit now.

As far as that trouble I've been having, I'm still having it and I'm not sure what to do with it. I literally cannot talk to ANYONE about it, because I have no privacy, and no relationship that doesn't come with certain strings, and certain topics of no discussion.

I would tell a few people if it wasn't for my father and the person in question hanging around all the damn time when I'm talking to my people on the weekends.

And I can't exactly kick my father out of his own workshop now, can I? And cordless phones are a thing of the far, far future.

So I'm still frustrated and loudly complaining in my head, but I'm learning to cope with my impending doom. Yay.

See you all later,

-Teigra

I don't know how to live, but I got a lot of toys.

"Voila! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers must verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V."
-V For Vendetta

You know, if my name started with a V, that would be a really cool way to introduce myself at parties.

However! That doesn't mean I will be stopped by introducing myself in this fashion, or shouting it out in public at any moment that I deem it appropriate. Now I just need to memorize it.

Le sigh.

Things are looking rather complicated right now. I'm spiraling in a great little vortex that barely ripples the water of the big pond, but things are fast-forwarding like nothing I've ever seen before. Still, not that I don't appreciate its own subtle beauty, I am also held stunned by things I have said, done, and things other people have said and done.

I'm on the precipice of making a horrible mistake. Knowing that it will happen doesn't make me feel any more confident about it. In fact, it makes me feel lousy.

I'm a completely rational person at most times, but you catch me alone and I turn into something odd almost without thinking it.

And that's how you can see the future. You catch yourself alone, and you find out how you react, and suddenly you realize what is going to happen and you are powerless to stop it. Why? Not because you're a bad person or its a bad situation, but because that's just the way it goes. There is no stopping it, and you're as cornered as a tiger in a cage.

Teigra Vivienne Harper.

We all know it's a fake name, but that's not to stop it from its meaning, and its truthfulness.

Even if the meaning of something is evident to the person, it is sometimes not evident to anyone else.

Have a wonderful time with it,

-Teigra

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”
-Don Delillo

She says I'm a bad man

You know, there is a reason that I usually bow out of political arguments.

For one thing, I know that my knowledge of recent politics (in the last twenty years) is very little. I know that I don't know squat. I know what I hear, and since most of the time I like to stick my fingers in my ears and hum so that I don't hear it, I don't hear very much.

Lately I have been perusing wikipedia and I've been reading up on presidents. This was started because my little sister came to be with a sixth-grade take home workbook and asked me who the last five presidents were, and I couldn't answer. THAT scared me.

It seems to me that my lack of knowledge doesn't really bother me until it slaps me in the face, to which I go "Oh shit."

Another reason I don't get into political debates is because I'm afraid of ending up like this girl and loosing my mind.

I'm a very passionate person in many ways of life, but I'm very afraid that I'm still incredibly naive when it comes to hard facts. I want to be able to debate things back and forth, but I realize that I'm debating from fluff, from the history text books that I read four or five years ago when I was still in public school. I know nothing.

Still, at least I haven't completely given up on my quest for knowledge, so there is hope.

I do like to just keep on my hat and walk away right now, though, because I feel so young, so childish, when I am pulled into a political debate.

Why am I thinking about this anyway?

I happened to flip over to CNN today while I was watching my little sister and they were announcing some shmuck about the President's actions in the middle east and how the nation was divided on the issue. I turned to my sister and said, "For the very small amount of people that actually call in the poll, they think they have the entire nations opinion."

She asked me what the heck I was talking about and I explained a few things to her, but all the things I realized I really wanted to explain, about the foreign policies in the middle east and the Presidents actions regarding it... I couldn't remember. Or I never knew.

So now, suddenly, amidst everything else I'm worrying about, I'm worrying about the state of my intelligence. Again.

Still, I can't just put my hands up one day and say, "I've learned everything I need to know!" I keep getting arrogant and thinking that, and not realizing that I do have much more to learn, much farther to go, and that I am never going to just stop. I can't. There's TOO much knowledge out there.

Talk about a crisis of conscious. Or... what would this be defined as, anyway?

-Teigra

P.S.--My sister just lost a tooth. Give her a pat on the back.

I left it all behind, those things I used to do

Oh, wow, I'm having a much better by about 250% day then the last few.

Why?

Visit my writing blog and you'll see why. I'm having a completely wonderful time with it all, you know. Writing has never been so much fun.

I ended up getting there by lying on my back on the little cot I have in my sisters room, staring up at the ceiling, and I felt that something move over me. You know the something. And I smiled and said, "OK. Do with me what you will."

Such simple actions lead to the most complex reactions. What do you know?

Anyway; I'm occupying myself with the usual today until nighttime falls, and then its back to writing. I'm keeping myself re-inspired on a nightly basis by going on half hour to hour long walks.

I've never seen so many flowers, and smelled such good perfumes as I do in these streets. I keep finding lavender, and I keep stealing it from peoples front yards.

But is it really theirs? Do they really cause the seed to grow, or do they simply help it on its way?

My father asked that of me in context to my pet snakes the other day. Speaking of which, this weekend I'm going to take a bunch of pictures with my fathers digital camera. Of me, of my snakes, my projects and all that goodness. I really want to show off Cero and Mordred to the online public, because they are such beautiful things. Maybe I'll take pictures of them while they're eating. That would be nifty.

I'll just have to put them in a clear container so I can get some good shots of them.

Oh, wow, I'm simply rolling in joy right now. I really do think I'm a slightly if not extremely manic personality. I have my all-time lows and my all-time highs. I'm at an all-time high right now. But then again, I've had more highs since I've been here then lows.

Maybe I am bi-polar.

Um...

Who cares about all that crap, anyway? I don't.

It's not like I "can't live with myself".

So take care, and look up at the sky tonight, cause I'll be looking up too, and staring at the stars and thinking about the same thing.

Plus, the stars have been gorgeous recently, and it’s a shame I don't have anyone to share them with.

Toodles,

-Teigra

"Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger."
-Cicero

Angel in the woods

The night is ending up to be much better then the day was going. I'm going to go on a walk soon, after I have some ice cream.

....

Yeah, I know. But I've been loosing weight like crazy already, so ice cream for the past.... four... nights in a row, isn't really a big deal. Really.

V for Vendetta came out recently, and I'm renting it for the weekend so that my father can see it. Dad would love it. I loved it, in a really angry sort of way. It's one of the few movies that has come out recently that I would enjoy owning. Not many get on that list.

Well, four weeks and three days everyone. Let the count down begin...

Toodles,

-Teigra

And then they carried me to a dark hospital room

I hate job hunting.

But at the same time, you'll never hear me laugh as much as I do when I'm answering the questionnaires for the personality profiles that they have you go through. You know the ones:

"I hate being ordered around."
A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Disagree
D. Strongly Disagree.

"I don't mind working long hours on my feet without a break."

"I will answer all our guests questions with a smile, with or without reasonable accommodation."

"I would sell my soul, with or without reasonable accommodation."

I honestly have no idea why this amuses me to the brink that it does. I'm known to say such things as, "Yes, I am your whore, I will do as you please... ", "Yes, master", "So you wish it, so shall it be!". Of course, of course, I am being completely sarcastic. My sister hasn't yet figured out that fine art, so she just looks at me funny.

For those of you that are lucky enough, smart enough and talented enough not to ever step foot in retail or food service, consider yourselves lucky.

And again I did that frustrated hoping in the seat, up and pacing around, back down in the seat to yell out, frustrated as the day you met me here on this beautiful blog, "I'M SO FUCKING CLOSE, WHY CAN'T I GET THE GOOD JOBS!? I'M ALMOST EIGHTEEN!"

If I thought I was frustrated before, these next few weeks are sure to be a blast. I saw very many opportunities on the websites and searches I was conducting for jobs I could fulfill, for far more then minimum wage, but they all require eighteen and older. Of course.

You know, sometimes I seriously pause, lift my head, and think with a furrowed brow, "How old am I again?" You know, especially when I could hold conversation about tragedies, politics, drugs, pop culture, and those that I'm having conversations with are twice to three or four times my age. Then I really have to think about it. How old am I?

Is there a test for how old you are, really, outside of your actual years, by how you act? If there is, I wish to take it. I'm curious.

And if it wasn't bad enough just being older in mind, I have to LOOK older in body. "You look twenty-three," someone told me the other day. Thanks. Thanks for another reminder that I won't be twenty-three for FIVE YEARS. I wish I was twenty-three. I wish I could buy alcohol, purchase a house, sign up for the military and see another president in office. Not that I would do any or all of those things, but I would like the option.

Kind of like I want the option to marry a woman if I want to. But that's another subject.

Hopefully, hopefully, four weeks and three days from now it will all seem like a bad dream. That is the way my mind has worked in the past and I hope it continues to work in the future.

For there will be celebration. God, yes, there will be celebration on the day of my birthday. The hearts of dozens of men and women will be warmed by the idea that they no longer have to worry about being locked in jail with a well-placed touch or a well-spoken comment. The glances and comments spoken will no longer be threatening to the giver or the receiver, and Teigra will rejoice. She will rejoice with much gusto.

Just thinking of it makes me happy, and then I come crashing down to earth and realize--damn it. Still seventeen. Still... illegal.

Damn it.

Well, here's tricky thing.

Anyway, here's the list of all the things I have done in the eight years before my eighteenth birthday.

• I have written over 4,487 pages of writing (approximately 3,944,073 words) on my computer. Not counting hand-written.
  
• I have competed at three artistic competitions at the local level at 11, 13 and 15. Won one first place and two second place metals.
  
• I have had two art gallery showings, one at Mattie Rhodes in Kansas City, one in the Opera House in Belton.
  
• I was arrested for stealing $28,000 worth of jewels at fourteen. I stayed in Juvie for three weeks. 50 hours community service.
  
• I've tried committing suicide no less then four times. The most recent being two months ago.
  
• I graduated from High School at fifteen, but was prevented from receiving my diploma until I was sixteen.
  
• I enrolled in Metropolitan Community Colleges at sixteen. I finished 9 credit hours, and was prevented from finishing my last 12 when I was kicked out of my mothers house.
  
• Got my drivers license at 16.
  
• I've bought one car, recently settled a dispute with another car, and paid monthly insurance for two years. (until recent)
  
• Became the sole benefactor of my mother for three weeks.
  
• Lost my virginity and explored my bisexuality.
  
• Supported myself financially for almost a year off of e-bay.
  
• Gone through four different jobs, one of them working with my mother.
  
• Drank and got drunk for the first time at fifteen. Started drinking more often at sixteen 1/2.
  
• Become something of a social smoker (marijuana)
  
• Tried my first cigarette at 14, quit. Tried again at 17, and still at it.
  
• Got kicked out of my mothers house for asking advice.
  
• Got into my first car accident (with a 2005 Ford Mustang)
  
• Was raped by a boyfriend (he was drunk).
  
• Lost many good friends to time.
  
• Moved out to California.
  
• Filed charges against James Sumrall for child molestation and sodomy at 12. Spent the next year fighting in court to get him imprisoned.
  
• Was thrown into a mental institution once by my mother when I had a psychotic breakdown.
  

I don't know much or any more, honestly just don't want to think about it. Starting to think about those things is getting me a wee depressed. Oh well. Bet you didn't know most of that, did you? Well, there you go.

And who says that I'm still a child?

-Teigra