Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in spookycritter's LiveJournal:

Saturday, March 18th, 2006
1:03 pm	Grandma's Claw I've made this live journal not to be much of a up-to-the-minute record of what I'm doing as being a sort of collection of strange ideas and odd memories rather than being even remotely live. I wish to reminisce and record for a slight bit more of posterity. Here is one of my fantasies of my future. I've decided that when I am old and a being an odd-ball grandmother I have a plan for my grandchildren and neighborhood kids. It'll be great. I would try to have it planned out. I'd tell my kids to say to my grandchildren "Now kids, Grandma lost her arm and she's a little out of sorts because of the medicines. But don't worry, the nice doctors gave her a new arm. But don't stare at it. She's very sensitive about losing it when she remembers it. Remember: Don't stare". This is what we shall call "Grandma's Claw". For the neighbors kid situation I'll just have them deliver a cup of sugar and utterly insist that they come in for a cookie. I'll have prepared with my forearm tied up and my grandma's claw attached to my elbow. I'll wear a long sleeve cotton nightgown and a terry cloth robe both a little worse for the wear. Now once the kid is inside alone, with me in my kitchen sitting in a little plastic chair at a card table by the window I will slowly make my way over to the cookie jar half-mumbling to my self and utterly befuddled. Upon finally reaching the jar on the kitchen counter my metal claw will uselessly scrabble at the ceramic lid. I make a lot of noise while trying to get a grip with a hand that the child should be beginning to think that I'd forgotten that I'd lost and I don't realize it's a claw. Finally lefty comes in and helps remove the lid. I reach in the jar to with my claw arm and, again after a long struggle pull out one of those real soft and oversized Molasses cookies. Now the journey back. I hold the cookie before me and I shuffle slowly and erratically back, drowsy-eyed and cheerful. I seem to be desperate to please company. With the cookie clamped in my utterly inhuman appendage of hollow steel I hold it barely in reaching distance for the child and I wait for them to take it. I hope to achieve at this point a number of effects on my little guest's mind; depending on personality and age they may be either really scared, trying not to stare as if staring is a evil sin or at least extremely uncomfortable. I'm waiting. They now must, out of politeness take the cookie, i.e. interact with the grandma claw. I'm positive that the child will avoid touching the metal and quickly pull the cookie away and get very involved with eating it as to avoid the inevitable conversation with a drugged-up, scatter-brained grandma. I then reach out with my claw, which i have forgotten is a claw and tousle their hair. A minor detail: Before dawning the claw I'd kept it in the freezer all day long. I swear that this claw shall carry the cold chill of death, I want the temperature of the room to drop when I approach. I sit down and start the conversation. I ask about school and friends and ask many of the questions over again. I pick up my cat an stroke it with my claw in a clumsy manner until the kid finds a way to escape home or their parents come back from the bathroom. My grandchildren with later be told the whole thing was Grandma having fun but the neighborhood kids might never know the truth. Every Halloween every child in the neighborhood will know where that best, the sweetest, the most candy that can be had can be found. It will be waiting in an enormous bowl on my lap as I sit on my porch in a chair. I'll have a simple, cute uncreative costume like a kitty cat or a clown. I sit there grinning, my claw resting in a bowl of sugary delights. You could have some, if you dare the Grandma's Claw. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
12:12 am	Reflections It seems a moment of reflection has struck me. I was reading comedy goldmine's recent piece on weird kids from elementary school. I thought I might record a few old memories for fun. I hope this look into the past might trigger entertaining stories of youth from my friends. Devin (a.k.a. hollowman) has some good ones. My elementary school days were not fun (luckily home life was really good. I was my grade's only tom-boy, not boyish in the tough, proud, future lesbian way but boyish as I thought girly things were boring, "Let's pretend we're man-eating sharks instead"! At home I DID play with my little ponies and I'm at a loss to explain why so few girls can resist the near instinctual draw towards horses and ponies in those pre-teen years. I was a tom-boy, all my friends, all 3 of them, were boys. It seems there comes an age where it not socially accepted for boys to be friends with girls. I quote from my best friend of yesteryear "true boys don't play with girls". Boy did I cry! I lost all my friends. i had nobody to stand up for me against the bullies. I was alone but it was not my friends to blame, they were weak to the pressures of disapproval from peers and parents. It was society to blame! I balled up my tiny nine year old fists sworn to ever fight the expectations that I as girl should be girly. I didn't really "Fight the Man" as much as became weird. Well, more weird than I was before. I was already known to be "catwoman" from my shameless impersonations of felines, I'd eat things on a dare and I spent recess playing games that focused on hunting fellow student, most of which didn't even know they were part of the game. I guess I just got weirder. I would walk around headless. My coat could be zipped up over my head and I would peer out a button hole. I dug for dirt. I pretended to be a digging up dinosaur bones and crafted brushes, spades and chisels from woodland materials. If pressed I'd admit I knew the was nothing to be found but more dirt. I dug to see colors of dirt. I wrote "Me Was Here" on everything. In charcoal, chalk, marker or crayon you'd find my mark under slides, on trees and on buildings. I lived in the tube slide. It wasn't comfortable and I was used frequently by other kids but when they were done I'd crawl back inside living in it like a mollusk. Things didn't improve much in junior high. Jacob Kohut was a notably bad taunter. This has a happy ending. On a particular bad day in shop class when the teacher was out he would not let up. Some of the girls which were usually mean to me even yelled at him. I stood up raging "Jacob Kohut, I'm going to KILL YOU!" as I shoved the joke voo-doo doll I made in home etc. into a broken vise, slamming it so hard it's stuffing burst through the seems and it lost it's button eye. I wasn't going to kill him, I didn't really even think to dabble in voo-doo or witchcraft and I had no plans to exhume him anyway. The point was he BELIEVED I was going to kill him. It was easy for everyone to believe it too. I was weird, quiet and nobody knew much about me other than I could draw well. My "Me was here" mark was replaced by "Kill Kohut" which I wrote on my things and in odd little places when I was bored. I'm sure he saw some in those in-obvious locations. I watched him just to give him the creeps. If the teachers knew about this they wouldn't do anything about my behavior. I think some we're even cheering me on. Kohut wasn't very likeable. One day Kohut followed me home singing the batman theme (because being the "catwoman" it became my much hated theme song) and then call me a psycho. I turned around all calm and corrected him, "If you call me Psycho then you should sing the Psycho theme song" and then I hummed it to remind him how it went while continuing home. When I looked back again he was gone never to follow me home again. He had a friend ask me "did you go to Kohut funeral this weekend" to gage my reaction. I laughed and said "of course, I brought the party favors". His friend didn't laugh. I thanked the Comeback Gods for a week after that line. I was normally tongue-tied. I figuered Kohut would just be wary of me for a year or to before forgetting. My efforts to give him the shivers were so low energy the whole ruse would fade away. Not so. Kohut's imagination did all the work for me. (I'm paraphrasing mind you) "There are but three furies in spacious hell but within man's breast a thousand dwell". Kohut KNEW he he'd done rotten things and I'm sure he some how felt that he ought expect bad things to happen in return. I didn't know this until later but he truly did believed I was after him. A rustle in the bushes could be me with a knife or bad run of luck was a witchy curse I'd placed on him. Kohut was superstitious. He wanted a restraining order against me. It all ended on the bus in high school when he had a girl ask me, as he would never approach or speak to me himself at this point, if I was going to actually kill him. I told the truth, that I had just been harmlessly spooking him all that time but now in high school he's just as teased as I had been and there was no sport in being cruel to him. That I even felt sorry for him. A silence descended. After a while I looked back. Jacob Kohut was two seats back red with shame. He swore blind for years I was going to kill him. Years of terror over a joke and now, the weird little girl who used to cry without warning in class felt pity for him. Should I be proud or ashamed of myself I'm not sure. All I know is it felt like a win. School life wasn't all bad I guess. Current Mood: recumbent (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
4:20 pm	That wasn't water... I am having a bad day, not horrible or tragic or traumatic but not good. It more the fault of previous days. The bad sleep yesterday night from my cat in the throes of her first heat and namely "Page Eight". Page Eight is the page from the first issue of the comic I'm contracted to complete and I'm racing to finish Issue 3 and then Issue 4 by the end of May. I keep reference copies of my comics before sending them off to the inker. I looked up Page Eight. Page Eight is a huge aerial battle scene as flying armies clash in brutal melee, I was very proud of the result. This one took a long time to do. I am not clawing my way towards my art desk to re-draw the whole thing again. So now I mad, real mad. Where the hell is it? But more importantly right now, who is to blame? You see, I don't expect to find it. It's NOT in my possession so where ever it is I'm not getting it back. I'm going to have to draw it again. I would feel better, calm down and even, maybe enjoy re-doing Page Eight at points it if I knew whose fault it was (even were it my own). I believe this is because Something Went Wrong and when that happens I want to Prevent It From Happening Again. To top it off I grabbed a random water glass from around my apartment and knocked it back. It wasn't water. I don't know what it was but whatever it was it WAS old. It was clear and tasted faintly sweet but stale and above all moldy. Yuck! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 25th, 2005
6:29 pm	My Nemesis Okay, Halle Berry. Your in the clear. I think you do a fine job of playing dramatic roles. You just didn't really fit into the role of playing Storm (whom I've loved so much from reading my old comics). You simply didn't have the body for it or could even get close to that kind of dominant personality. As for Catwoman you weren't even supposed to be the DC character and I know you didn't want to play the part anyway (you had a contract whipping you to do it). I didn't mind. Really. As for J.Lo everything I could say about you has already been said by everybody else. You're just you at this point. But only one of you hot girls do I have an axe to grind for; it's because I know you were taking notes. One of you have paid attention to my greatest likes so you can stroll right on in and crush my enjoyment out of them. One of you are garnering some sick joy out of watching me writhe in helpless fury with bitter tears coursing down my rage-twisted face as you ruin what I loved. I'd call you my enemy if not for your obvious research. Nay, thou art my nemesis: Jessica Alba! Oh yes, I see through you. First it was Battle Angel Alita whom I'm a fan of her creator Yukito Kishiro. Such a fan that I took pains to dress up as Alita (Gally to others) at a convention before setting out on my rabid hunt for related merchandise. As you know my search was fruitless. No wall scrolls. No posters. No keychains. No action figures, plushies or dolls! Why? I was at convention full of fellow geeks far more in the know than I was. I set to interrogating them (not hard if your a girl in a black vinyl cat suit). Word was that James Cameron bought all the American AND Japanese rights at the time so he could get away with producing a terrible rip-off "Dark Angel"; Jessica Alba was supposed to be our Alita/Gally. Okay. Now the show was the pale example of Yukito Kishiro's (why'd you do it man?) work was bad enough but now my tough girl heroine suddenly became stripped of all qualities I'd like about her. In retrospect I ask was it you, Jessica, that insisted this show was based in the remains of Seattle? Did you have an episode where you made sure to urinate on the ashes of my favorite coffee shops? But I didn't think you were my nemesis yet. Not even when you slipped in to Sin City as Nancy Callahan; which was a failer on your part to raise my ire as Nancy is a definite "hot chick" part. But today it's all becomes clear to me after you've shived me in the ribs. Stabbed me right into where the blade sinks deep, carving your initials onto my heart. You must of taken note of my sunny, summer childhood of reading old marvels in my self-built tent, wallowing in pure happiness. You had to pain it by taking the part Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four! It's obvious strike at me as she doesn't even look ANYTHING like the Invisible Woman, not even if you were shown only in dotted lines! SHE'S BLONDE. Very, very BLONDE! A married woman who, though still beautiful, is too mature to be a "hot chick" role. Go play hot chick roles! Sue is the Super Hero Donna Reed. Your too young to seriously pull off a motherly persona. Bah. Who am I kidding. You know this already. You planned it. I should stifle my loathing until our day of reckoning. Speaking of which I should now prepare for. But I leave you with one warning. I know the possibilites are slim for a "Sandman" movie (But plans for many super hero movies finally made it). If you even THINK of getting in on that action your dead! DEAD! You hear me? If I hear you get the part of Death your life is forfit to me! Die, Just die. Painfully! Sigh, I suppose I'd best be off grumbling into the night at this point... Current Mood: aggravated (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 21st, 2004
9:00 pm	Meeting today and WoW So I went to may meeting with my editor. Yay, another reminder that I have a job! My inker Rachael did great job on the samples so I can relax. Such things have weighed heavily on my worried little head (I mean it, my hat size is like a 6 I think). As for my the graphic novel that I'm Finisher Penciler on... grrrr. I'm a finisher penciler dag nabbit, not a background artist or rather co-penciler. To ready these pages for the inker I'm gonna have to lay down more graphite that the first artist and do nearly twice the work. This guy really doesn't care and is leaving me to fix his utterly huge gaps in the art work. I signed on to spice up the backgrounds, not do his backgrounds FOR him. It makes me mad because I care what I'm handing over to the next person. If I were to I slack on the art the next person would have to work that much harder to make it look good. I'd feel bad if I did that to the next person. This guy doesn't care at all and he's head penciler so he will get far more pay. Frankly I'm getting pissed at him. On another note the WoW/World of Warcraft open beta has ended. Frankly I have cracked a second time (the first being that I finally started and LJ account)and now I'm joining a massive multi-player online role-playing game or MMORPG which must be paid monthly to keep playing. Ken and I are going through this strange new withdrawl. We must have it again. Further more once it hits shelves we must recruit others into our simulated world. Was it subliminal messages hidden during spell animations to program this lust. It this what those lost to Everquest have sold their lives to? Is it part of the brainwashing that I don't care despite the horrors I've seen from MMORPG addictions? I found out today Rachael the Inker had also tested the open beta. Ah, tis not just me and other secluded geeks which thirst for WoW. We both wait like starving wolves for Nov. 23 for WoW to return to us and to again bath in it's beautifully done secular lighting and day/night sky cycles. Frankly Ken and I are tempted to skip thanksgiving with our families. Sigh. I miss playing my pointy-eared, tree-huggin' hippie charachter. Ah, well. I'll live.... I GUESS! Current Mood: geeky (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 20th, 2004
8:03 pm	Comicard Convention I know, I know, I should update more but there's not too much going on in the fabulous life of an entry level comic book penciler. None the less the conventions have been fun besides a good reminder I DO have a job. It's a bit strange though having people bring there kids to ask about my job and take notes. I'm entry level and have spent large sections of my life slacking. I'm not ready to accept what I do as a big career. It's the plan though. A Handle Full of Notes to The Kids Wanting to Know How I Started in Comics: * Yeah, I know everyone, EVERYONE says working hard in school is the only way to go places in life. Lies, horrible lies. I don't mean don't learn anything and for god sakes read but your grades aren't nearly as important as they say they should be with the exception of certain carrers and colleges. If you want to get into Art, Music and/or Hooking just try to keep your grades above a D...except for with hooking, I don't think it matters. It's good to be good at school but if your just plain not don't kill yourself. * Spend hours and hours of your life drawing. I don't mean on an art desk with tons of "How To" art books; I mean scribbling on an art pad of some sort in front of the T.V. scarfing Doritos (careful about that orange greasy dust their coated in getting on paper, hard lesson learned there). * Coffee. The caffiene in coffee is a magical, mystical miracle substance that you should get familiar with early on. I started on coffee about 15 and my weirdly creative younger brother Paul it seems about 11. That and I'm told Crank or ..uh Crystal Meth is good for crunch time when deadlines start creeping up but I don't have any expirence with that so..uh... ask somebody else. * Make up crazy secret stories in your head, craft them to great detail and be slightly mad. It just seems to be kind of common amongst comic book type people. * Okay, this isn't really a tip but it is something I learn or rather heard heresay of and that is "Todd McFarlene is a (dick, jerk, arrogant ass-hole...) I don't know this for sure and I really like his work. I haven't met the man but I keep hearing this at all these conventions. *Shrugh* And there's my honest poit of view of course ignoring the obvious jokes like I hope no one actually thinks I say take crank. I would never truthfully suggest an aspiring artist should use meth to help their art work. No, a simple 8-ball of coke should suffice. Current Mood: restless (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
11:58 pm	I finally cracked   So I've started an account, ah well. I've resisted for so long but after putting up a Deviant Art account I'd fallen into internet exhibitionism too far. Yes world wide web I have become another one of your sluts, a hooker turning her tricks the side of the information super highway. But at least I'll make sure the net receives it's nutritional value in semi-colons.   Is good day, was paid fifty bucks for a drawing on a D&D group portrait. Better than last week toiling under Master Ken Benson Jr. who got his wisdom teeth yanked. "Tiana prees gimme sum water", "Tiana, I want sum food", "Tiana, please stop stealing my Percoset". Whine. Whine. Whine.     I at least kept Ken in more lively spirits telling him tales of "Skive"; Used to be "Steve" but he wears a ski mask so to be more distinctive it became "Skive". Skive is Ken's personal stalker who gets closer and closer to him every night he visits. I'm not sure if Ken's gauze muffled whimperings were in a positive or negative review of my high detail inner monologues of Skive but it sure kept him from passing out into a drug-induced haze.   Sigh, better make some food stuffs. Current Mood: lazy (2 Comments |Comment on this)