Ebb and Flow

Stolen from curious_mold

Comment on this post, and I will choose seven interests from your profile and ask you to explain what they mean, and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your journal so that others can play. Please play if you like!

Life is a strange mixture of extremely good and extremely sucky. On one hand I have a wonderful husband who I am falling in love with all over again, I got a promotion, my art drought has ended... Then on the other hand (the one with the smashed knuckle and infected finger - for real) I can't pay my bills, I am still awful at keeping in touch with friends, I am not showing my dedication to karate as much as I would like to, I am the worst procrastinator... etc. All in all, I guess these things cancel each other out, but I would still like to be THE BEST AT EVERYTHING. The byproduct of all of this is suffocating guilt. Maybe I need to up my medication dose?

Please accept this pictorial depiction of my epic failure:

EVERYONE PARTICIPATE!

More info...

I'll post my submission on DeviantArt and link to it for you guys.

I can feel it creeping in on my soul... The annual obsession with Phantom of the Opera. The fact that I read the book every year and never tire of it is the mark of a truly good tale. I feel that this year will be the one where I delve into the dark symbolism of the and re-interpret it in my own creative way.

Firstly, the Erik/Christine relationship is the very epitome of the Death and the Maiden motif (a personal favourite of mine). DearDeath.com has this to say...

"In many dances of Death already figured a representation of Death with a fine lady or with a beautiful virgin. The image of a young woman was also found in the three ages and Death. However in both cases, there was no trace of erotcism. This old vision will take a new form at the end of the 15th century and become the theme of Death and the maiden, which will culminate in Germany at the Renaissance.

In this type of iconography, the young lady was not involved in a dance anymore, but in a sensual intercourse, which will become always more erotic as time went by. Death is usually represented as a skeleton or a decaying corpse. It can be gentle and loving or it can be rude and violent, in both cases the maiden usually does not resist and follow her master to the grave. Stressing the Christian linkage of death with sin, and sin with sex, the motif portrays death as a seducer undoing a young woman in the prime of carnal life.

In the symbolic, there is a confusion between the young and fresh body of the maiden and decaying body of Death. Fear may stimulate eroticism and death takes on unexpected possibilities. Death and the Maiden also echoes the mortality of our affections, that life is short as is the proud beauty of a woman, and encourages us to consider them more carefully.

In the iconography of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, death raped the living: countless scenes or motifs in art and in literature associated death with love, Thanatos with Eros, the agony of death with the orgasmic trance.

The outstanding achievements of Victorian art reflect the fundamental themes of Love and Death. The paintings depict the popular stories that fascinated Victorian audiences, such as Shakespeare's Juliet, Helen of Troy or the sorceress Circe. They are extravagantly emotional, endowing subjects drawn from the remote past with the passions and emotions of real people in the present: love and death, fear and longing, beauty and desire."

( Examples... )

Erik and Christine's relationship also bears some similarity to the Hades/Persephone myth, but I'll save that for another entry.

In the meantime, please enjoy a portrait of Erik that I did as my half of an art trade with glamourcorpse

This is what I learned today, thanks to the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:"

Consciousness is our gift as humans, but a side effect of consciousness is the ego (the cause of suffering). All ignorance stems from the desire to serve the needs of our egos, all good comes from using the gift of consciousness/awareness.

Consciousness. Warning: May cause ego!

That, and that Harrison Ford is now on the Hot Men Over 50 that I would totally do.

After 3 years of stagnancy I feel like I am really being creative again. I've started to re-construct my website and have updated the Snoozin BRAND. Megan, Deb and I will be having "art-ins" to just work on something creative. I'm trying to get involved with doing some pro-bono design work. Maybe someday I will start painting again...

Check out my new look: www.susaniscreative.com

Blog-worthy things that are happening:

- I got a promotion at work! In August I will no longer be the ASS. Manager, but the full-fledged Manager of Design & Production! Huzzah!

- I have decided to learn American Sign Language. Why? Because I feel like it. Not that I will have the oppourtunity to use it often whilst working in the orchestra industry, but I want to learn nonetheless.

- I have re-worked my personal design identity and will be launching a new website this weekend (hopefully).

- I have sent out feelers to get involved doing pro-bono design for local non-profits and have received some very positive response! This is good... I get portfolio pieces and I get to help out causes that I believe in.

That is all for now.

1) Open up your library (iPod, Winamp, iTunes, etc.)

2) Put it on shuffle

3) Press play

4) For each question, type what song is playing

5) Hit next for each question

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

1. What do people assume when they first look at me?
Hell Is Chrome - Wilco

2. What will be a big challenge in life for me?
All the Negatives Have Been Destroyed - Spoon

3. Am I a good boyfriend/girlfriend?
The Minor Tough - Spoon

4. Do I have a Secret Admirer?
Be Gone - British Sea Power

5. Will I ever become manically depressed in my life?
Hate It Here - Wilco

6. Is someone trying to kill me?
Small Ambulance - Mew

7. What is my sexual preference?
Don't Buy the Realistic - Spoon

8. What am I afraid of?
The Ghost of You Lingers - Spoon

9. What will I be doing in a few years?
Far, Far Away - Wilco

10. What is some good advice for me?
Winter Wonderland - Darlene Love

11. What should I do instead of this meme?
Lines in the Suit - Spoon

12. Will you get married?
Last Day of the Miner's Strike - Pulp

13. What is the story of your life?
Laffitte Don't Fail Me Now - Spoon

14. How can you get ahead in life?
Not Even Jail - Interpol

15. What is the best thing about your friends?
This is Hardcore - Pulp

16. What song describes you?
The Beast and Dragon, Adored - Spoon

17. How does the world see you?
August - Shooglenifty

18. Will you have a happy life?
Summer Teeth - Wilco

19. How can I make myself happy?
The Bells of St. Mary's - Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans

20. What should you do with your life?
Peter Rambeley - Wade Hemsworth

21. Will you ever have children?
I'm Always In Love - Wilco

22. What will be the title of this meme?
Metal Detektor - Spoon

In an average week I would say that I dream about the living dead 3-4 out of 7 nights. These dreams are the most vivid and terrifying of all of my subconscious exploits. Upon waking I always feel like I have been through some sort of ordeal... Sometimes I'm simply fleeing from the zombies, but most of the time I am actively fighting them. It's very gruesome... One time I actually was a zombie myself!

What does this MEAN!? Surely there is some deeper meaning beyond my obvious nerdiness!

Here is a fairly succinct analysis of zombie dreams...

What do you think?

This blog has become overrun with surveys... isn't there an operation I can have for that?

As usual, blog-worthy things are happening, but I am not blogging about them. How unfortunate.

( And now for something completely different... )

SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!

Read this:
http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-62/121000975642540.xml&storylist=penn

Do this:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

This shit has me fired up.

( Here's my letter... Feel free to modify it for your own uses. )

I totally won first place in my Forms division at the tournament today!

os_lunatum is right.

( I have testacular cancer. )

and


OMG!

Teh connexions!

I am obsessed.

Also, do any of you know about this?

Art All Night is tomorrow and I didn't create anything new to show. For the past 5 years this event has been my motivation to get out the ole brushes and pour my heart onto a canvas. But this year... I couldn't care less. I don't have a drop of creativity left in my body.

Maybe someday I'll make art again?

Stolen from glimmeringlily


My Personality

Neuroticism	19
Extraversion	96
Openness to Experience	97
Agreeableness	60
Conscientiousness	84

You do not feel nervous in social situations, and have a good impression of what others think of you, however you feel strong cravings and urges that you have difficulty resisting. You tend to prefer short-term pleasures and rewards over long-term consequences. You enjoy some excitment and risk taking in your life. You are a moderately imaginative person (hello?! I am EXTREMELY imaginative!) who enjoys a good balance between the real world and fantasy. You find helping other people genuinely rewarding and are generally willing to assist those who are in need. You find that doing things for others is a form of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice, however you feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You strive hard to achieve excellence. Your drive to be recognized as successful keeps you on track toward your lofty goals. You often have a strong sense of direction in life, but may sometimes be too single-minded and obsessed with your work.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. The best Uggs