shadows_of_ink

Life just never turns out as we plan.

It may come close sometimes, but I’ll guarantee you’ll have been thrown for a loop at least once along the way.

My plans, as of late, have been failing left and right. In the end things have, for the most part, worked out, but that doesn’t mean my plans have worked. Usually I think that, in my case, the fact that things have worked out means my plans have failed.

I’m not really that good at planning. It requires a bit of foresight that I lack. It requires a bit of order and structure that I really lack.

For those of you that don’t know me (although I doubt that anyone who reads this would not know me) I’m not a very structured person. I’m a chaotic mess on most days. My world is chaotic, my Spirit is chaotic, and my mind is more so than both of the former combined.

Chaos does not a good plan make. Unless, I guess, the plan is chaos. Then if that is the plan give me a call!

I learned at a young age that I’m horrible at planning and forethought, which is why I got so good at enduring and surviving.

I taught myself handle most any situation, even if the situation is homelessness or hunger.

I’ve been homeless, sure it was mostly by choice, but it doesn’t take away the validity of the statement. I’ve gone hungry. I’ve been lost. I’ve gotten rid of the majority of my worldly possessions and moved across the country with almost no money. These things are things I’ve done to test myself. I truly believe that you can only judge how glorious your life is by the hardships you have lived through. A man doesn’t know his quality until he’s tested it.

Really I have no clue where I’m going with this train of thought. My train of thought doesn’t have a station to stop at.

Really it’s some things that a few of my friends, on I particular, are going through that just make me reflective on how lucky I am to be so good at landing on my feet.

-Rex

There’s nothing like hearing a piece of writing read by the author.

Not all authors can read their own work in a compelling way, but I find that when they can, and they do, it’s worth it.

As a gift to myself I went to a Patrick Rothfuss signing this week. (it was a fairly long drive and it essentially took my whole day for the 2-3 hour event) He did a lot of Q&A, which is one of the most entertaining things about him. I love author Q&A, because you really get to understand their body of work through their eyes. After the Q&A he read something he wrote a while back, not from any of his published or pending published work, but something that was funny as all hell. After he read that he did more Q&A, we all laughed. Then he read an excerpt from “A Wise Man’s Fear” book two of the king killer chronicle.

Now I’m not going to give anything away, I’m not going to even talk about ANYTHING that was said in the excerpt. What I will say is that it had dialog from his main character in it. And just hearing it from the author, in the manner of which HE feels Kvothe speaks, changes the whole feeling (in a good way).

It seriously gave me goose bumps.

Best self gift ever.

-Rex

Most of what I write here really is just a lot of existential thought. I tend t use this type of writing to convey ideas that have struck methrough the day.

For the most part, I don’t really write about my life. You see, I just tend to feel that my life isn’t really all the interesting.

But today I feel the need to write about something that is extremely exciting, at least for me.

My good friend, Julia, is in the Air Force Reserves. She isa Mechannik Mecanic Mekanic…. She fixes planes.¹ Well her superiors have said that her plane needs new nose art. And her bossasked her if she knew anyone with artistic talent to produce said nose art.

Now I’m by no stretch of the mind the only artistic person that She knows, but I’m one of many that shebrought this quandary to. Over the next few days I thought on the idea. I toyedwith the concept that they had for the name of the plane.

This is what I put together.

After many weeks and major revision, they have accepted my design for the nose art. The art has been printed and is in the process ofbeing put on the plane. She tells me that they will be having a cerimony² in May, and I’ll get to attend and probably meet the mayor of Wabash and the Crew of the plane. I plan on getting many pictures.

This is exciting news and I can’t wait. Sure I’m not getting paid for it, but it’s a great portfolio piece and good on an artistic resume.

- Rex

1 - I know how to spell mechanic... this is an inside joke that will likely find Julia hysterically laughing.
2- Of course there will be a ceremony… they are the military after all.

I don’t speak1 words too well, but I love them. Now, I’m not a writer, but I like to think that I can write well. I get good grades on Collage papers. When I write this blog I do my best to make it as articulate as I can. Granted I’m not proofreading anything per se, but I check my spelling and do my best to write proper sentences.

Majority of the people I interact with on a regular basis are fairly smart. I like to say I’m the dumb one of the group, and most people think I’m pretty smart. Several of them have ridiculous vocabularies. Most of them are well read. At least one of them is SCARY smart.

There are a lot of times, in my classes, that I’ll use a word that I feel is fairly normal, that I use in my normal daily interactions, that I feel most people know. Only to find that the only other person in the classroom that knows what I mean is the teacher. When I write a paper in English and we do peer editing, most people that look at mine tell me that I shouldn’t try so hard to write over their head. At these moments all I can think is, “I’m not trying to write over anyone’s head… this is how I speak.”

Words, to me, are exorbitantly important, they define you. No matter what a person is defined by the way they speak. It can’t be changed. You sound like an idiot; you’ll be treated like one, or be thought of one. You sound like a well spoken, well read, intelligent and professional person; you’ll be treated like one.

I feel that people, when interacting with others that are not members of his/her group2, should take the effort to speak in a manner that is well put together, and lacking slang. Don’t get me wrong, there are times that I use slang3, and it has its purpose, but NOT in a professional environment4.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to belittle anyone. There are people in my daily life that have limited vocabularies, and I don't treat them as Idiots. My mother, bless her heart, isn't highly educated. She knows this. There are many times when I'll say something and she asks me what a peticular word means. I calmly explain it, and we move on. I know that she didn't get a high education, I know that she doesn't read as much as me, but I also know that she tries. When she's writing something she does her damnest to overcome her lack of education, and through her effort, she has become more knowledgeable. THAT is what I'm trying to convey here. I think that people SHOULD TRY to speak well. I'm not saying that if you don't know a bunch of the words I'm putting here for fun, then your a moron. I'm saying that people who IGNORE the importance of articulate speach, people who WILLINGLY speak poorly...those are the idiots. Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you are not one of these people, as I tend to not associate with willingly Ignorant people.

Now, I could go on for some time ranting about how the idiocy of how people around me speak, but that’s not the purpose of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to present my love for big5, specific, and obscure words.

Without further diversion here’s a list of some of my favorite words. And I assure you… these are all made up real words:

Ineffable
Defenestrate
Discombobulate
Ineptitude
Verisimilitude
Abrogate
Detritus
Vilify
Visceral
Ignominious
Egregious
Vituperate
Tautology
Penultimate
Gesticulate

Not all of these words are use by me on a daily basis, but I know what they mean, I know how to use them, but please don’t ask me to spell them, I’ll spell them WRONG

Well, it’s been entertaining flaunting my adulation of vocabulary, but atlas I must convey myself to my colloquium before I err in punctuality.

-Rex

P.S. the words through out the blog, not the ones in the list, are words that I have had to explain to fellow collage students. Collage students... these are people who are furthering thier education and some of these words are NOT in my mind big words.

1 - It is speak, not talk. Saying “I don’t talk well, is just shy of saying “I don’t talk good” this is more opinion I suppose, as in modern English the two words are unfortunately interchangeable
2 - meaning their peers, I figured it was implied but I’m having fun with the notations
3 - The extent of slang that I use pretty much is “dude”, “sweet”, “Awesome” I avoid most current street slang because I feel it makes one sound like an idiot
4 - Work, school, ordering food from anywhere, shopping…. Ok so I should have just said ANYWHERE to better make my point.
5 - Some of these words aren’t big as in size, in this case big is a general description meaning not commonly used, which is similar to obscure, but not quite.

Fear is an interesting thing. It can hold a person in paralysis, physically, mentally, emotionally, and metaphorically.

I know far too many people who let their fears control too much of their lives. I know someone with a fear of being alone, which causes him/her to keep as little contact with people around him. His fear of being left causes him to be alone.

I know someone with a fear of losing control of his/her finances, that when he/she makes a mistake and gets behind, he/she gets so lost that he/she ends up allowing themselves to get even further behind, out of fear of paying on the wrong and not having money.

I have a fear of being my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents. The issue is that they haven’t done a whole lot in their lives. They tend to be happy, but they have dreams that have since died off, or were put to the side for more important life goals.

Now, as a whole there isn’t anything wrong with this, but I feel my dreams are far to important.

If my parents ever taught me anything worth being learned it’s the life rule of “ten-ninety”. This rule states that ten percent of live is controlled by happenstance. That ten percent represents the light that turned red at the wrong time, or the random flat tire, or the lost important paper. The rest of life is controlled by how you deal with that ten percent.

This applies to fear as well. Ten percent is the fear; ninety percent is how you deal with the fear.

I always say that I’m not afraid of anything. It’s not entirely true, but I like to think that very little fear I have has any power over me.

When you don’t have the time to be creative you feel like doing nothing else. If you have all the time in the world, the muses are off frolicking elsewhere.

Lately I’ve had the time to draw, but not the place to do it properly. Unfortunately my artistic mood is a volatile thing and I can never seem to get into the right frame of mind when I can’t get to a place physically that fits my “creative environment”. Friends always suggest for me to draw anyway, but it’s one of those things that is hard for me to explain, like my dislike of reading library books in place of buying my own.

I’m weird, as if you didn’t know. As a creature of habit, I do certain things in certain ways, usually in ways that seem highly illogical to others. Like for example my art; I tend to enjoy environments that offer me a lot of ignorable chaos. For example, I LOVE drawing in very busy and loud coffee houses, mostly because of the fact that there’s a lot I have to block out. This only works, you see, because they are things that I need to block out, and want to. If it were distractions that consisted of, for example, conversations that I was even marginally interested in, or a TV that had even an uninteresting show on, these distractions would pull me away. But if it were conversations that were just background noise?

It might have something to do with my inability to efficiently filter out background noise. I don’t do well focusing on one particular sound over the din of a busy room. So I guess that it would make since that I like rooms where all the noise, even nearby noise, is background noise. Thus this noise, to me, would just get lost in the white noise, allowing me to do nothing BUT focus on my drawing.

In reality I’m probably just thinking too much into it, I’m probably just too damn stubborn to draw outside of my normal channels.

Besides, I miss my drawing table… which I just don’t have the space for.

Everyone who has ever read a comic, and some who hadn't, knows that on the 8th of March in 2007 It was announced that Captain America (aka: Steve Rogers) was Dead. News Article
The events shortly followed after the Civil War story arc, that encompassed the ENTIRETY of the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU).

You see, the Civil War was an epic thing where the Heroes of the MCU were split because of the laws passed that required Heroes to register with the government. It established that without being registered a hero, who continued to do hero work, was operating outside the law.

Captain America was on the side opposing the registration. There was a great fight that commenced in New York. During this fight Cap realized that the heroes were destroying the city, so he, and his comrades, laid down their arms so that the destruction would stop. Cap then allowed to get arrested, hoping that his doing so would bring more supporters to his cause.

On the steps of the court house when walking in for trial, he was shot and killed.

This was a big deal. This was the biggest comic book character death since the death of Superman. It had a major affect on the real and fictitious world.

Then, come July 2009...Marvel had to go and cheapen the death of a hero.

When you kill off someone, especially someone that is loved and is unexpected, in a GOOD story. It ruins the story by bringing them back to life.

I'm sick of comics bringing people back from the dead when they really shouldn't it's so damn stereo-typical now that the villain or hero who just perished isn't dead. More Here, Even More Here

I'm so bothered by this fact that i can't even rant properly.. there's too much to go through.

Bastards

STOP. RUINING. GOOD. STORIES!
...

Batman should stay gone...

...

But he wont...

Unlike most people, I don’t like sleep.

Besides the fact that I could be doing something productive instead of being in a state of unconsciousness, I tend to have bad dreams.

Vividly freaky dreams; not nightmares, but very real and most times emotionally traumatizing. I tend to wake up somewhat disturbed by my dreams.

The weirdest thing about them is that once I’m awake I can’t figure out what was so disturbing about them. Sure they are weird dreams, but I can never figure out why they affected me so strongly.

Luckily, my body doesn’t really need much sleep, as I tend only to sleep for a maximum of 5 to 6 hours a night. I’m told it’s not healthy, but when I wake up fully rested and can’t get back to sleep, I’m not going to force it.

On top of the fact that I don’t need much sleep, I can stay awake for scary stretches of time and still remain fully functional.

There was an entire month span once, when I was unemployed, that I was usually awake for more than 24hours before needing sleep. I say needing because I just was not tired enough to sleep. Then I would sleep about 6 hours, be fully rested, and be up for the ext 24 again. It was an interesting time.

I’m also much more of a night person than most. At 6 or 7 in the evening is when my brain kicks into full gear. Sure, before that, I’m awake and functional, but I’m not the least bit creative. Most of my best work is done between the hours of 2 and 4 am.

What’s this all mean? Well, I think it means that once the day comes where I’m drawing for a living and not having to regulate my sleep schedule around school or work… I’m going to live an interesting life.