Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood logistical manager to say that no we’re not dead and the site isn’t either. Vox has been a fair amount under the weather lately, concentrating on getting current commissions done, and we’ve gone through some changes personally as well. We’re still here and still working on more projects and new stuff. Also we’re contemplating on where to take the site from here. So this is just a quick note to all those that are watching that we’re still chugging along and we really appreciate you sticking with us. Thanks!

—E

To many people artists seem / undisciplined and lawless. / Such laziness, with such great gifts, / seems little short of crime. / One mystery is how they make / the things they make so flawless; / another, what they’re doing with / their energy and time. – Twin Mystery, by Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

What’s the difference between an artist and a craftsperson? A craftsperson gets paid *before* they die.

I’ve been busy of late, as I’m sure is obvious from my lack of posts. Sometimes it’s difficult to post because every minute my hands are on the keyboard means my hands are NOT on my crochet hook. I just recently finished up an entry for Threadknits (more on this later) that I hope will do well. Currently I’m working on a Seth and an Anubis from Egyptian mythology, also a commission based on Anubis. This weekend I hope to finish up Pyramid Head’s knife (yes, the never-ending commission Pyramid Head), slap some red paint on him and his “victim”, take pictures and get him off to his new happy home.

I’ve decided to start getting up at 7AM in the hopes of getting more done. No more lazy mornings, no more snooze button — all an attempt to get more done and finish some commissions that need doing. Hopefully some pictures soon.

Also, I’ve updated my etsy shop with a lot of dolls that I’ve wanted to sell. Give it a look, if you will.

Tags: courage, crochet, Egyptian Gods, gonzo, pyramid head, sleep

So I’m still here. It’s been a bit, I know. I’ll try to be better about it in the future. Right after the new year we had to titrate my meds again (more crazy makes me need more meds) and that takes a bit to get used to. Plus I also had some sort of sinus stuff that tried to eat my face off. Sinus stuff + new meds = broke down worn out Vox fit for nothing more than forcing herself to go to the RealJob and then coming home and sitting on the couch and crocheting granny squares until her brains fall out.

But now I’m better. *twitch*

Anyhoo, since this blog is all about saying things that I want to say (other than those that will scare horses and permanently scar the family members that I like) I thought I’d review the opening themes of two anime series that I enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: anime, commissions, crochet, illness, medication, medicines

Original fiction (or is it?) short story. PG-13 for Satanic themes and references to blood and absinthe. That’s as much warning as you get.

Note to stalker ex-husbands (all two hundred of you) and judgmental family members: I do not condone violence, Satanism, selling your soul, murder, bars in general, Old Ones, or Religion. But if it works for you, then that’s your bag.

DO NOT USE THIS STORY AS AN EXCUSE TO IRRITATE ME OR PUSH YOUR DOGMA ON ME, if you have any to push. I have been known to bite, and I have not recently had my shots.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some of these things I just write for myself. If you think you know what I’m talking about then good luck with that but I bet you’re wrong. Some things I say only involve a few people, and only they know the whole of the situation.

Today I realized that I should not hate the way I look.

I look like the Earth herself; my insides are reflected in the outside. I am round as the Earth is round. I am full and generous, spilling light like the bowl of the moon. I am sensual and giving. I am the soil that longs for the rain. I am summer and winter and all the seasons between. I embrace those that care for me in return. I provide, and I repay.

I need to go and get new clothes when I’ve the money to do so. Out with everything frumpy and/or in ill repair. Let me know everyone (always in a tasteful way) that I am a force of nature. I am a Renaissance beauty. I am filled with mystery.

There’s a low undercurrent in all this, of desire and melancholy, of reaching for joy just beyond one’s grasp. Saint Cloth makes the best music of the spheres for this sort of emotion. Used to be his hymns were angry and his psalms rebellious; now they are more often reflective and melancholy. Often I’ve wanted to ask him why the change. Is it the simple matter of growing older (as some saints manage to do, if not martyred first)? Was it some horrible event that he’s still dealing with? A shift in the world, a birth or a death, a love or a hate?

But these may be pert questions to ask of a saint. I don’t know whether he’d smile or frown or turn his face away from me.

In this last month I’ve felt a fear of my saint’s return. His teachings demand bravery of his adherents – they require life to be lived and not merely endured. They cause one to embrace all that one is.

And sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard to be brave.

But I am brave. I realize this now. I’m still breathing, even after all the times that I would have ended myself, even after all the times I wanted to die and I got no help to live. I go on with my art and work towards my dreams, despite discouragement in my youth from those that should have supported and uplifted me.

Were my saint here with me today, I’d be far from these walls. I’d love to sit with him by a fountain, and share a companionship like that of the rumored Messiah and his disciples. I’d tell Saint Cloth a thing that will not surprise him: that it’s easy to ride a white tiger, and difficult to dismount from it. But what would life be without these various addictions?

And should he ask me my drug of choice, I must respond in low tones: the only addiction that fuels itself and is never satisfied.

Then I would close my eyes and pray.

Some cravings last forever. All we can do is ask the gods for patience.

We’re wild when we run, when we dance. Saint Cloth commands a crowd of Maenads; always a moment away from tears or an instant away from mayhem. He plays our heart-strings like a harp of agony. We are bound; we are crushed; we are flagellated by his catharsis. Never have I wept such joy to be beaten thus.

And when the relief hits, I sigh. I stand in the cold and light a clove in the darkness – the star in my hand calling the stars in the sky.

I alternate one vice with another, the stars with the waters, and between it all the motion of my soul.

There’s something delightful about the emptiness. The dark in the sky is reflected in the dark of the streets. The light of the stars finds verdant mirrors in my eyes.

I wonder if the saint completely understands the carnival at his control. “Carnival” has a root in “carnal”, the flesh. It is a delight to everything sensual, everything worldly. When I’m poised between the light and the dark – when I’m an empty flask filled with only his voice – that is the sensation that binds like a rope cutting the skin.

It’s then that my saint presses his lips to my cheek, right at the corner of my smile.

Does it free me? Does it chain me? With a glint in my eyes I can answer: does it matter? All I know is that I still crouch, overwhelmed by the memory, in my own religious ecstasy.

Saint Cloth, come bless me once more…

Tags: life, Saint Cloth, vox mortuum

I had a conversation at work today (because in retail you work right up until the point until you’d rebel if you DIDN’T have to work) with a straight white man. I *SAY* it was a conversation, but it was mostly one-sided. I mentioned the current politically correct climate in which we all should say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. How there are fundamentalist groups out there with nothing better to do than to spread God’s message of love and peace by haranguing harmless customer service associates for not saying “Merry Christmas.”

And this straight white man said, right, because it’s Christmas. It’s not “the holidays”.

I said: Do you know to whom you speak, all the time? Perhaps they’re Jewish, Kwanzaa celebrants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Pagan, Agnostic, Check-marked “Other”, or Just Plain Don’t Care.

He said: This is a Christian country, and it’s a Christian holiday, and so we should say “Merry Christmas.”

I do so love straight white men with their easy sense of entitlement and their occasional bouts of astounding ignorance. Especially if we define “love” as “find myself mortified, embarrassed, belittled and enraged by”.

We (the Christian White Men) were here first, he said. I replied that I didn’t know he was Native American. He responded that even the Native Americans got here from Russia/China. I didn’t know that the Native Americans massacred and displaced a indigent population to take over this continent, but I kept *this* thought to myself.

And the first 13 colonies were Christian colonies, he said. Trying to keep more and more quiet, I thought yes, maybe, but they weren’t the RIGHT Christians in the eyes of the lands they left (amazing how often that happens) and so many people came here in search of religious freedom. Other popular reasons to come to America were love of money and conquest, and because you didn’t have a choice (referring to the English criminals who were planted in the prison colony of Georgia, and all slaves of all colors).

As for Christmas being a Christian holiday… really. Even though Jesus’s birth can be placed by the scripture ITSELF as being July/August due to the fact that shepherds don’t have flocks out in the fields during winter? This reminds me very much of Eostre — oh, excuse me, EASTER — where the ignorant but devoted celebrate Jesus’s triumphant return out of a chocolate egg laid by a rabbit. No, not at all pagan.

But in the end I received a flurry of denial from the straight white man about how this is how he thinks, this is how he’s going to do it, this is how it should be done, directly from the Great White God to his ear, and that’s all there is to it.

Let’s pause for a moment and imagine the welter of mortification and anger inside your humble host, Vox Mortuum. Let’s pause and consider how hotly my blood demanded a curb-stomping. Even though I should be used to such shabby treatment by those who have that *direct* line to the Big Invisible Sky Judge, it still comes as such a shock to experience it. “Never surprised, continually amazed” is my motto.

It wears me out, too. I’m hyper-vigilant and easily provoked, as are most of the people who share one of my many psychological conditions. As he was muttering his rant forcefully under his breath my hackles raised, adrenaline coursed through my veins and I prepared to fight or run. Being at a civilized office environment, however, means that one can do neither. Even if your feelings and sense of self are belittled or lessened by others.

But still I demurred, as a well-trained Southern Woman is bound to do, and backed away from the topic. There’s no convincing the ignorant, the red of neck and belligerent of mind. I’m sorry that I did it now, that I rolled over and didn’t stick to my guns. I’m sorry also that I don’t have the bravery to report him to HR. I don’t want to make my workplace hostile, and when you are a minority of whatever flavor that is sadly always a possibility.

Now I’m sure at this point all the family members and my thousands of ex-husbands stalking mefollowing me through this journal are wondering: Just what does Vox believe? “Does it really matter?” I would respond. Opinions are like sphincters; everyone has one but usually it’s better if we don’t share them with others.

I can tell you *A* belief though; a story, a myth, a dream just like all other human beliefs.

The earth, the mother of us all, grows tired and weak after giving the bounty of the harvest. Her energy recedes. The leaves fall, the sap sinks, the grasses die, flowers fade, and the weather grows cold. She dies her annual death and on the darkest longest night of the year her god-husband sacrifices his life to revive her, lest we all perish with her.

We remember this yearly event by the arrival of the man in blood-red, bearing precious gifts in the snow. Unfortunately in this consumeristic saccharine age we’ve gelded him and his sacrifice, and we call him Santa Claus.

I bemoan this weakening of our primal heritage, at the same time I say “Could I have a Nintendo DS game?”

Merry Godsdeath, ya’ll.

Tags: gonzo, life, politics, vox mortuum

I’ve decided that every Tuesday I’m going to go back and reread an issue of Transmetropolitan. It seems appropriate, what with my stream of brain medications and my endless frustration with the planet. If you’ve not read Transmet you need to, even if you’re not perhaps fans of comic books. It rocks the world. Think Hunter S. Thompson in a crazy future with more exciting drugs and more interesting weapons, bringing the light (and the chairleg) of TRUTH into the City.

Issue 06 – God Riding Shotgun

I’m going outside the damn house today. You may begin your applause now.

There’s a great quote here but it’s redacted for not being at all in anyway worksafe.

My get up and go has got up and went. Can I get back in bed now?

Tags: gonzo, sleep, Spider Jerusalem, transmet

I woke up this morning and felt a bit of trepidation; I’ve got two commissions about 90-95% done, and one just started… and I need to have them all in the mail in 10 days or less. I CAN and WILL do it, but I do admit the impending deadline has me perturbed.

So I did what I always do when I’m nearly down to the wire: I cleaned like a mad woman. Today I’ve picked up, sorted, stacked, put away, wiped, washed, thrown out, and made up.

It started with organizing and moving things off our coffee table. Then I decided to pick up the floor around the table so that the husband could vacuum later. Then I started throwing things away that we don’t use often or that were damaged or beyond date. Then I picked up the books that need to go back on our (already overflowing) bookshelves to organize later.

An hour or so of hazy madness later, I have a surprisingly clean house.

I apologize if this entry’s a bit scrambled; I keep seeing things that I could adjust/organize/throw away and I interrupt my writing to do it.

All my stuff’s up off the floor; I’ve gotten rid of two bags of crap I wasn’t really needing. I’ve got a stack of books ready to be integrated. I’ve got things more organized than ever. I’m so domestic I’ve got a crockpot of no-peekie stew simmering on the counter, and I’m seriously considering making my family’s brunswick stew recipe (at 1/6th the volume; they used to make it for church lunches).

The husband’s been such a big help, as he always is. It’s so odd to have a partner who will clean and organize alongside me. I’ve just about worn him out with some serious labor today and I love him more than ever.

I do have to watch out for a tendency towards hoarding. The members of my family are prone to holding on to random and meaningless stuff, although we give different reasons for it. “Collecting.” “These might be worth something someday.” “I can’t throw it away now; I might need it down the line.”

Even a vague sense that we *are* our things. I know I once had that feeling.

When I was little I kept my room in a glorious state of clutter. No real trash and absolutely no food leavings, but my belongings were spread over every square inch of floor and horizontal surface. Even the bed was a zoo of stuffed animals.

Part of it was loving to see what all I had, to be inspired at any moment. Colors of toys or combination of light and shadow could send me off into a fugue, dreaming about everything and nothing in particular. Part of it was security device; if anyone wanted to bother me they’d have to do it over a mine-field of various slippery, sharp, pointed, loose objects.

I remember when various family members would come into my room and clean it. I remember sitting on my bed crying broken-heartedly as they patiently organized, removed, repatterned. To me it was an attack, an invasion and an assault. Other people… touching my belongings. Putting them back in an order that meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t be able to find things that I wanted until my fantastic haphazard filing method reasserted itself.

I recognize some of this as the start of mental illness.

What with better medication, better understanding of my own mind, and the love and support of someone saner than I am (or at least differently crazy) I have had only occasional clutter.

And now I don’t have even that. I have a Clean House.

There’s an Orange Clove candle burning on my coffee table. There’s the lovely smell of home cooking in my kitchen area. I’m a happy hooker.

Tags: cleaning, courage, hoarding, illness, life, medication, medicines

I was poisoned on Thanksgiving. I’ve been utterly sick and completely useless for at least six days because of this. I was given something contaminated with gluten, and I went through a pretty decent Hell because of it.

Thursday, day 1: Within 5 minutes of eating the contaminated food I was nauseated, cramping, and having brainfog and overall numbness. My fine motor skills were entirely shot and I was shaking so hard you could hear it in my voice. I couldn’t think to save my life; I spent the rest of the day on the couch under a blanket, playing easy DS games and watching mindless DVDs.

Friday, day 2 of severe glutenation: Nausea, migraine, shaking, stomach pain, fatigue and muscle weakness. Also, some paranoia. I was on my feet a total of eight times that day — once from the bed to the couch, three restroom trips, and once back to the bed from the couch.. It’s a short walk that took me about 5 minutes each way; my legs were so weak I can barely stand.

I could not drive, or walk, or stand up for an extended period. Early in the day I could not even hold a crochet hook because my wrists and arms hurt so badly.

Saturday, day 3: Still nauseated, weak and tired. I remember that this was the first day I was even strong enough to sit up unaided or without being propped up by pillows. That stunning achievement was reached midday, for several minutes at a time.

I was not able to walk or drive for any length of time. Thank gods a good friend of ours was able to come by and take the husband out to get groceries and other needful things for us.

Sunday, day 4: Still flu-like symptoms, short temper, still very weak. I did however have the strength (by the end of the day) to stand up long enough to take my first shower since the glutening. If you do the math, it’s not pretty.

Monday, day 5: My immune system and digestive tract are fired. Woke up sore all over; weak and in pain. I went to my doctor who made soothing noises (she is a joy and a comfort) and gave me steroids to stop the over-reactive immune response. My herbalist (also a joy and a comfort) gave me oregano to prevent a fungal infection — steroids have that effect sometimes — and peppermint oil for my ongoing nausea. All the driving nearly did me in, however. Went to bed early and happy about it.

Tuesday, day 6: Stuffed full of steroids. About 60% back to “normal”. Head hurt, thoughts racing, and crying jags like whoa. Fun! I think I made the right decision to stay home, no matter how worried about money I am. When a scene from “Death to Smoochy” makes me tear up, I’m in no condition to deal with the outside world.

Wednesday, day 7: Went to work, like the brave little toaster I am. Still pretty sore. Pretty nauseated (but the peppermint oil does certainly help). My head does weird things if I move it too quickly. I’m tired and I have no appetite — probably for the good.

All this peppermint is making me want Mint Chocolate ice cream, though.

It sounds so incredibly simple and trite when I write it all out like this. Nothing can describe a full week of feeling like I’m in a tumble-dryer full of rocks for hours on end.

And I can’t do this anymore. Luckily I will get paid for the holiday, but missing 3 days of work is a substantial amount and I can’t afford repeats of this happy little adventure. I’ve got to keep my food safely under my control. If that means not eating with family or not eating out at restaurants or not eating at work functions or parties with friends… then so be it. Any amount of transient personal embarrassment or even a little hardship between me and other people not as supportive of my condition is worth it rather than face a week of hell and another 4-7 days of discomfort.

I’m amazed that some people think that celiacs are doing this “just for attention”. I would like to give such ignorant savages some attention in return.

With a baseball bat. For a few hours.

Tags: crochet, gluten, illness, life, sleep

Sorry for the no posty for a bit; I was extremely poisoned at Thanksgiving. More on that tomorrow, but in the mean time I’d like to go ahead and include two cute links:

Well, you know how I love cats…15 Fascinating Facts about Cats. I especially like this one: “Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.” I am glad to have it validated (by Random Internet Website with no References, however much that is worth) that my cats feel emotions in the same way I do. Much of the time with my cats I feel like I’m not a human having a relationship with an animal, but a thinking creature having a body-language interaction with another thinking creature who does not understand (for the most part) my spoken language.

Also, this link: Baby Rabbits in the Back Yard. This is a video whose title should be self explanatory. There’s no way I can describe in words how adorable this is. It’s head-explodingly cute.

Actual real content tomorrow and some updates of *GASP* the crochet I’ve been doing lately.

Tags: gluten, illness, links