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About this blog

a pisces stream of thoughts

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A Career Ghost

I walked into an art store yesterday and was surprised to find that there are still package designs of mine on the shelves: a number of drawing and sketch pad covers, some watercolor tablets, boxes for pastels and oil pastels, and packaging for canvases. I'm sure there was more but I didn't explore the whole store in search of my work.   It's hard to quantify my response to seeing my work in a random art store two years later in a different city and state than where I worked on all of it. In some ways it is bittersweet to see it. Even though that company was really bad for me in terms of stress and psychology, I was doing big things. I had an inventory of 50,000 items where it was only a matter of time before I would have had them all at my desk for a package redesign. They were distributing those items to thousands of art stores in the US. They are all nationally recognizable art brands like Canson, Pentalic, Connoisseur, Strathmore, Rembrandt, you name it.   Yet when I see my work in art stores I sometimes wonder at my uneasy, dark response to it. I see the "what-if" part of everything. It was good, but it was also bad. That company was part of my downfall when it came to my health problems and stress levels. Tom had very real anger management issues. They had management and deadline problems and supervisors that would lie about what they had told you if it meant saving their ass from Tom's anger. It also bothered me the way they nosed around my health problems when I was too sick to walk on my own let alone work their insane deadlines.   I am such a different person than I was back then. I was on this huge career path and it was all I truly wanted. I have different priorities now and a different sort of wisdom about what is truly important in life. Believing you may die really knocks some perspective into a person. Right now all I know is that I want to maintain my health, I love to do art, and I'm still interested in design though not on a level where I'm willing to whore myself out just to get picked to create a logo design for someone who's rude because they don't want to pay for your skills yet can't do it themselves.   Right now I find myself at a crossroads where I must figure out what I want to do with my abilities and what opportunities to search for or create. It's not the career I had, and yet I don't know what it is that I do want. I feel like it's just out of my line of sight right now.   I guess... I guess seeing that stuff in the art store is sort of like seeing a ghost. I can look back and see an entirely different path and life and it would have led me to such a different place than I am right now. For the most part, I do not want anything to do with where that other path would have led me. But sometimes it's hard to still the voice in my head that wonders if I have lost the one big career opportunity of my lifetime. Is my potential lost? Will I find a new path? Will it be something I love? Do I already have that now?
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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Surrender

I saw something on a mailing list I'm a member of, and it really rang true for my situation right now. It read:   Wishing implies doubt and trying implies control. We need to let go of these things. Abandon yourself. Surrender everything. Only then will things be clear enough that you can see where you are going, what you want, or what you need.
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

1
 

Releasing JoAnn

Last night I had a dream that I was being summoned. With no idea of how I arrived, I suddenly found myself in a large hotel-like building. I was entering and exiting elevators, walking through hallways, passing dozens of doors.   I walked in a clockwise motion until I came to large set of elevators. As the doors opened, dozens of people that I have known at various times throughout my life came pouring out. Some were close friends, some were acquaintances, some were people I knew of but didn't know.   The moment that everyone was off of the elevators, JoAnn's mom approached us with her arms outstretched. She smiled and thanked us for being there, then ushered us around the corner and through a door. Inside, the room was huge and many people milled about, mingled, or sat on the edge of the plush burgundy couches. It was a very calm, quiet, hushed atmosphere. Silence. Patience.   Then JoAnn's mom started speaking and she just said, "Thank you. We love you all like family. JoAnn is here, but you only have a moment."   Clara stepped aside and JoAnn entered the room, beaming. People ran up to her in small groups and we all just hugged. No words were necessary.   And then she was gone.     (JoAnn passed away on August 11, 2007)
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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Chocolate

OMFG.   I just had chocolate for the first time in 2 years and 9 months.   It's been building for a while but I guess I was subconsciously waiting for something to push me over the edge; as much as it pained me to give up chocolate so long ago, there came a point where I was giving up hundreds of foods in order to "reset" my stomach and my body's responses to foods. After a while there were so many foods being pulled that I just said fuck it. I was resigned. I didn't whine. I didn't think about them.   There may still be foods that I will never again taste in this life. I can still hardly eat out. I still must manage my health and watch labels and cook my own food. I am okay with that. But...   Chocolate.   Even in moderation, it's still chocolate.   *sighs with happy*
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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Loss

Last night I was told that my close childhood friend, JoAnn, had just passed away. Even though I thought I was prepared for it and had had a strange feeling about things with each successive report that came in from the hospital via her family, I wasn't. I was not prepared to hear that JoAnn had passed away.   Early yesterday I had a feeling that I should light a candle for her. After 4 hours it was about halfway burned when I heard that she had passed on. Since that time, the other half of the candle has taken...15 hours to burn. What does it mean if anything?   I slept fitfully last night. The candle was on my altar and Nathan said I kept murmuring in my sleep.   I miss JoAnn. She was hands down the strongest, kindest, and most positive person I have ever known. Even if she is free from pain and suffering now, it's not fair. She was too young to die. It hurts me to think that her entire life was spent with health problems.   Shock has delayed my reaction but I am slowly coming to terms with her death. In time it will hurt less.
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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Hyper!

Nathan is taking me to see Stardust tonight! It feels like I've been waiting for this for ages.   I am so excited that I can't sit still. To make things worse, I just opened up some liquid caffeine. Someone tie me down now before I vibrate with so much energy that I start to float upward.
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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Stardust

From Neil Gaiman's blog on 7/15/07:   "I just realized this morning that the weekend Stardust opens is also the weekend of the Perseids meteor shower, one of the most active times for "shooting stars" of the year; so it wouldn't be unheard of at all for people to see the movie, walk out of the theater, and actually see a shooting star themselves."   That. Kicks. Ass.   There's a reason I've called myself Stardust for over seven years, and one of my most memorable experiences in the past decade was the major Perseid meteor shower I saw at Mt. Hood in... 2002?   To top it off, one of these days I'll get my BPAL Stardust scents! I feel like I'm floating, happily...
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

0
 

What It's Like to Be Me

There are some days that my Pisces-stream-of-consciousness is so vibrant and thick that I don't think even the best writer in the world could convey all of it, nor could it be written in a way that links all the colors and emotions that are tied to each thought. So instead I end up quiet while my inner self ends up with so many things that I want to say but can't; thoughts of things I want, things I need, outlandish daydreams, past memories, future hopes; emotions like excitement, dread, gloom, timid, vampy, creative, silly... all crashing into each other.   Sometimes those thoughts and things percolate enough that they form into something more coherent, and when they do they bubble up to the surface and I sit down to write an entry. Other times, it's as if there is no such language in existence to express it all.   That's why sometimes I end up with nothing much to say in my blog entry than this.
alicia_stardust

alicia_stardust

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