A series of wins...

Same ol' same.
Working on a painting of a hen for my mom's kitchen and building a K-pop website for the giggles. For now, more distractions of the positive kind. Video fun, too!

Politics are so frustrating, but at least there can be relief this time around. Obama won. Thank Odin! Romney inspired enough fear in me to vote Barack instead of my true choices... Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. As a Californian, I should vote my conscience. The Democratic party is a guarantee. But still, Mittens scared the hell out of me. Hopefully, Obama will be encouraged to take more risks in his last term and push for what he really wants. And Congress... well, that's a clustercuss. Meh.

Ronaldo botched a free kick earlier in the Borussia game. In the dying minutes, Real was down 2-1. Crispy let Mesut take a kick and he saved the day with this pretty little curl.

I shrieked and jumped for joy. DAT LEFT FOOT! M1Ö ♥ 

My favorite person singer in the world was awarded with something that neither he or any of his fans thought was possible. The popularity award is a guarantee, because it's a public vote and he's won it three years in a row. But this... this was an incredible surprise and honor...

Best Actor for his role as Death in Elisabeth. Wow. A former boyband idol winning Best Actor. Definitely a first. And he rarely gets emotional in public unless he's singing, but there's no way he'd hold it in for this. Yeesh. You can hear the girls sobbing in the audience in fancams. Lol. I sobbed, too, I admit it. Dude has been been shat on and betrayed by his own industry for the last three years. That after more than 9 years of dedicated hard work under a slave-like contract. Musicals were something he tried on a whim to challenge himself. Three musicals later... this happens. ALL THE FEELS!

Speaking of slave-like contracts. Within the same week of Junsu's win, the KFTC came out with new standards for entertainers. Companies have to make financial records available, pay artists within 45 days, provide records online, and can't whore out their idols to shows without paying them... to name a few. Pretty basic stuff, but a huge step forward and success for JYJ



This is validation that the sacrifice of their careers was not in vain. They made the corruption public knowledge, stood up for what was right, persevered despite being blacklisted by the industry, and three years later, the gears of change are in motion. And Junsu won Best Actor.......... definitely still flipping out about that.
I still wonder if the pink hair was a dare--having played Death. Lulz.

It's raining. ^^
We didn't have the heat on for the first few days of freezing nights. Had to jog around the house for warmth. XD
A bit toastier now.

Mmmm. Toast sounds good.
I'm tempted to post about Hiddles soon. *snort* We'll see.

Ze

In search of Zen...

ひさしぶりですね。
I'd like to say I've improved. The truth is I just don't know. After a month I was feeling more settled and went out to buy frames for artwork. A store I've been to dozens of times. Picking out frames for my own work. No social obligation or challenge. Positive and empowered.
I started having a panic attack not long after walking in. That damned white-knuckle careen into an abyss. I've barely been out of the house since. I'm a coward.

While the anxiety monster keeps me in its grips I'm occupying myself with various distractions. Late nights traipsing through Netflix instant-watch. The 'new' Sherlock season for one. Re-watching the entirety of Star Trek: DS9 for another. Splitting my attention to the 2x5" scrap printmaking paper leftovers with some cathartic Zentangle-ing. See above... and below.

My dad remodeled my room... years ago. Had to box up a ton of my books at the time to put into storage. Eventually, said boxes ended up in the depths of our garage with the rest of the stored things. My mom valiantly dug out my treasured novel-hoard while looking for her own stuff--my Tolkien collection included. WOOO! Made it through The Hobbit and am just diving into Fellowship. Wildly excited about the first movie. The new trailer is beautiful and fun. Some fans are peeved with the humor. I'm not. I hope for the level of silliness present in the book. Balin looks beyond fabulous.

An interesting thing has occured in Kpop over the last few months. I keep up with new pop videos coming out of Korea on a daily basis, so I saw Gangnam Style when it had less than a thousand views. I've always liked PSY and thought it was brilliant and hilarious and an expertly handled commentary on Seoul society, but never imagined it would reach beyond international Kpop fans and their immediate friends... like every other video we see. And then it exploded in unimaginable ways. Right now it has over 270 million views, got a Guinness Record for the most liked video in Youtube's history, and PSY has been touring the media circuit here in the US. The dude was on SNL. Insane. It likely won't amount to much more than a crazy flash in the pan, but it really doesn't matter. What most Kpop fans love is that the Korean music industry has been trying to 'break into' the American industry for a long time, investing a lot of time and a whole lot of money, unsuccessfully... and PSY, with minimal effort, and no intention of doing so, became a worldwide viral sensation. Glorious.

The only thing keeping me from a truly vampiric schedule is rising early for soccer games. The football season is under way, which is great fun. I mostly keep up with La Liga and Bundesliga. I never miss matches with Real Madrid and the German National Team for my favorite footballer. That brilliant German bug-eyed freak with a magical vortex of a left foot, Mesut Özil. I never tire of watching him. He moves like a freaking gazelle. Real Madrid has been kind of a mess thus far, but Germany is doing alright. Frankly, Mesut could play like crap every match (though he never does) and I'd still watch him. It's the Beautiful Game at any rate... it calms me and I can certainly use some calming these days.

More tangles next time, perhaps?
'Til then.

Still hate Act 2...

Since the last week has easily qualified as the most terrifying in my life... 

let's have fun with nostalgic terror!

I kind of miss Baal runs for the creative names that would pop up in the list. Snowbaal Fight. Baal Bonds. Baalerina. Alas, gone are the days of endless runs and rushes. Doesn't work that way in Diablo III. I painted this dude from the cover of an LoD strat guide... I think. Probably 10 or 11 years old now. I was digging around in some old scans when I stumbled onto it. What a riot.

<--- As of this screenshot, I'm a level 56 Wizard. Haven't played much in the last week though. Been a rough week. And I'm in Act 2, which is a massive pain in the ass in Hell difficulty. I don't know how I'll manage it in Inferno. The combos on the elite mobs are simply impossible sometimes.

But I love the game! I do! It's really fun. It's certainly an improvement on D2 and LoD in a lot of ways. A few issues here and there, but overall positive.
It's also a visual feast. Particularly the later acts, 4 and 5, are just stunning looking. The design is just shiny and gorgeous. Not to mention the cinematics, which are mind-blowing. I pretty much salivated my way through the first play-through. So pretty.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Terrible spoiler warning, but avert your eyes from this little screenshot if you don't want to be spoiled. D3's equivalent of D2's Cow Level is Whimsyshire. I could not stop laughing when I saw it. Yes, this is me, killing a 'Chubby Pink Unicorn'. Beautiful. Many lulz are to be had in there. The Barbarian in the lower right is actually my brother. Oh, the lulz.

A wonderful highlight to an otherwise ugly week.

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

I don't mind putting this on the internet.
I've been starting to get help for my anxiety issues. A little therapy, which is more like exposure therapy since the most angst-inducing thing for me is to talk to someone one-on-one. So that's been a blast. To support that therapy it was recommended to try some medication. I've always been reluctant to go there. I like to deal with things intellectually rather than chemically. But I've been desperate enough recently to give it a try. I was prescribed a low dose of Zoloft to start with. Tried it. Had a bad reaction. A really bad reaction.
A few symptoms: numb/tingling arms/hands, crazy dilated pupils, numb lips/tongue, unable to read or type, unable to understand my dad on the phone when he was speaking perfectly clearly... among other things. Essentially, had a full-on panic episode from the stuff. Ended up calling an ambulance to the house and spent the day in the ER. I was coherent for a short while there. Then I went into a totally disassociated psychotic place... basically my brain shutting down to protect itself. I have little memory of the next 4-5 hours. Yee-freaking-haw.
The whole ordeal was essentially my greatest fear. Like, the ambulance-hospital-medical emergency-shots-puking-scenario while also legitimately losing my mind and self.... worst nightmare imaginable and then some. That was my Dementor.

Been sleeping a lot since then, trying to take it easy. I've had a chance to look up bad reactions to Zoloft on the internets and the findings are both fascinating and infuriating. Apparently, a reaction like mine tends to last a while. Like a month. I'm essentially hyper-sensitized, which is the opposite reaction to what the drug is intended to do. I'll be buzzing for a month. My vision is a little screwy. Very sensitive to light and sound. My arms are tingly and strange. I feel anxious all the time. Scattered thoughts. Bursts of headaches. *sigh* So, yeah, here it is. All my apprehension to take medication... validated in the worst way possible. Awesome.

Recovery will take a while and my life will continue to be derailed in the meantime. I'm thinking the best thing will be to draw regularly and work on fun things. That should keep my spirits up. I'm just glad to feel like myself again... mostly. For a while there, I wasn't sure I'd ever pick up the pieces.

Oh, and I love Junsu's album. I suppose that was a given though. ^^
It's the little things, man.
The little things keeping me going.