Dammit Photoshop

So whether or not you're into drawing or painting, I'm pretty sure you have that one friend who loves it. And if not, you know of someone who does. And, among those who love it, you probably know a few who've created their own characters.

I am among them.

I have a few characters that I've created in my life and I must say that I really do love them. I know that it may sound odd to someone who's never been through the character making process, but when you spend an ungodly amount of time invested into the creation of someone's personality, history, life, hobbies, likes, dislikes, and so on, you begin to fall in love with them simply because they are perfect in your eyes. You've made them perfect.

Now with my characters, I always try to give them either a piece of me, or a piece I wished I had. What I mean is, for example: Emily, one of my lady characters, loves art. So do I. Adam, another character, loves gadgets and chemical mixtures. While I do enjoy mixing chemicals, I wish I had a thing for technology and gadgets. When I add a piece of myself to them, they feel more real.

The character I'm talking about today though, is Rudy. But I'm not talking about him specifically, moreover an experience I had two days ago that involved him.

Let's backtrack for a moment.

I struggle to draw my characters. They either don't come out like I want them to, or come out so perfect that I can't redraw it. It's been a struggle of mine that I've been fighting for a number of years now. Anyways, I finally drew Rudy. It took going through a meme-thing on DeviantArt and carefully sorting him out, but I did it. I actually did it!

And in my pride of drawing him, I decided to draw him overandoverandoverandover again. But, seeing as he's 1800+ years old, I decided to theme the drawing and illustrate him once for ever century of his life. Togas, tunics, and knighthoods were all coming into play very nicely. I had drawn a cute picture of he and his daughter Romelia, and a not so cute one where he was on the ground passed out from an attack. There were arrows sticking in him and bruises speckling his body. But it was a wonderful illustration. They were all so perfect. And then of course, something had to go wrong.

My computer has a tendency to overheat sometimes. When it does, it shuts off on itself. Needless to say, I keep it propped between two chairs at all times, with a fan blowing up from beneath it. At school though, I don't have a fan. This causes me to have to save my work a lot, and frequently rest my laptop so that it can cool down by itself and not fry its insides.

Wednesday however, while I was putting it in hibernation mode to cool itself as I went to class, it shut off. Having just put it down, I didn't notice that this had happened. When I went back to work on the drawing during a downtime in class, I tried to open it and instead of the picture, got this message:


My heart nearly stopped.

I tried to open it again. Maybe it was a mistake.


I tried to open it through the control panel.


I googled it. Apparently, it cannot be recovered. I lost it. My first attempt at drawing my character, and he was gone.

Dammit, freaking, Photoshop.

Yummy Cake

I am Asexual.

I do not know who is reading this, if anyone, but I do know that this is the first time I am openly admitting it. My sexuality that is.

Asexuality in society is a fairly new concept as far as I know. I also know that many people think I am a freak for it, even without having ever met me. They confuse me for someone who has decided to live in celibacy, which I am not. Asexuality, like all orientations, is not a choice. I have never been raped, molested, or sexually assaulted in any way that could traumatize me against sex. I do not need 'a good lay'. I do not want one. I did not ever have a bad sex experience, because I have never had a sexual moment with someone. Which, does not mean that I would like it any more after having it. Does a sexual person need to have sex to know they're sexual, or is it something that they figure out alone the puberty train?

Whenever I hear people talk about Asexuality, it is typically in a negative light. And, that actually confuses me quite a bit. Who cares if I don't have sex? It's not like it's a requirement in order to live and love through a happy life. Even sexual people will say that sex doesn't directly equal love, so I don't see what all the hype is about.

I feel like I'm ranting. I am ranting. This is a rant. It has been decided.

The other thing I don't like when people talk about Asexuality, is when they disregard it as a sexuality, and demand that it is only for Biology. 

That's not what it is. This is what it is:


I got the both of these from Tumblr, and I CAN'T FIND THE BLOG WITH THE ORIGINAL COMIC THAT I USED. I can't find it and I feel terrible because I feel like I'm stealing from them and want to credit them and stuff but can't because I can't find them. That last sentence needs punctuation.

Back to the point. It's not that I-as the above picture shows-reproduce by myself. I simply have no desire for sex.

At all.

Monday Morning Part.1

So yesterday was the first  day of school since Spring Break. I can't say that I was the most excited, but nonetheless, I had to go. So that morning I got dressed, grabbed a cup of coffee and packed up the school bag with pencils and binders and knitting needles. As I looked in the mirror, I noticed something. My side braid and eye glasses made me look a little like a hipster. Grab the slouchy hat. So I grabbed the slouchy hat. After that, I was out the door and in the car where my mom was waiting. I jumped in the passenger seat and as she rolled out of the driveway, I picked a song to play.

The 45 minute commute to my school had begun.

We were jumping through Michael Buble songs as we neared the first of two roundabouts. I had been trying to find a new artist to play but, with a sudden addictive love for Michael, decided to leave it alone for a while and focus my attention instead, to the driver in front of us.

"Why aren't they going?" I asked my mom. In a roundabout, if someone is 1/4 of the circle away from you, you have the time and space to go and take your turn. Whomever was in front of us was clearly not acclimated to this knowledge, and was hesitating instead of driving. "Must be a new driver." I assumed immediately.

"You never know, they could have gotten into an accident." My ever-wise mother suggested. I wrote off her words.

"New driver." I said in a matter-of-fact way. After that, they drove on and I went back to song selecting. The conversation between us changed, and the woman driving in front of us was never mentioned again.

As we were driving the highway between the roundabouts I think I remember asking my mom to look at a picture for a moment. It only took a second, and we laughed, but when she looked back up I heard her cry out. I looked up right away and saw an SUV spinning at us from the opposing lane. We were hit nearly head on before I had the time for a single thought, let alone to register what was happening. There was a moment where I had blacked out, and when I came to the window was shattered and resembling a torn piece of paper. The airbags were deflated from use. I remember reaching out to touch them, but can't recall what it felt like.

Next to me I heard my mom say "Oh, Jesus", but not in the swearing way. Doors slammed shut and I looked over my shoulder, through a broken back window and saw five, maybe six men jump out of a truck. They ran over to the car and began tugging on all of the doors, but only one of them opened. They were shouting to each other in Russian, trying to figure out what to do. They decided to get my seat reclined, and I crawled out. As soon as I was out, my place was taken by one of the Russians. They were all over that car trying to help my mom who was stuck. Her feet were pinned from the dash and a few times she said it felt like they were burning. There was no fire though.

My mom was going to be okay. Knowing that, I decided to walk over to the other car and make sure that whoever was in there was okay too. Before I did though, I made eye contact with one of the Russians  He seemed to be the younger of the group and had an odd facial expression on his face when we looked at each other. Not sure why, I decided to the other car. By this point, other people including an off duty EMT had stopped. A man was already at the SUV, and told me that she was okay. So I went back to the car. Two of the Russians were cleaning up the car shards and glass from the road with an industrial sized broom that came from somewhere. I don't think I'll ever know for sure where its origin was.

Surrounded by new people, I watched as traffic backed up. All of these people were going to be late from work because of one small sheet of ice. I thought about them while the fire truck and police cars and ambulances drove up after one another. By now the Russians had done anything they could, gave their reports as witnesses, and drove off like they did that kind of thing everyday. My mom was moved to the passenger seat, and none of the new people at the scene even knew that I had been in the car. They thought I was a bystander because of how easily I was standing.

No one talked to me while I watched.

Woo! Blogs!

A post in which Penelope attempts to maintain a blog and not completely forget about it. Again.