My art is once again connected to the internet....

It's been hanging out on my digital camera for an entire month, during which time my computer has been unplugged from the wall; and because my camera only works with my computer, it's had to stay there... until now!

Let's just say that I found some things which defy my memory, as my childhood has large, gaping holes in it from... well... wanting to block it out. Instead of drawings, however, let's start out with... textures.

That is, rubbings of real objects with captions of what they are from, describing things that I both do and do not remember.

Laptop computer speaker? Yeah, I had a laptop as a teenager - until my dad stole it along with everything else I'd ever written, including all my diaries from over the years.

A board I broke in karate? Karate? Since when did I ever take karate? I keep telling myself I must be mistaken. I don't ever remember breaking any boards! Maybe I was just making it up?

***

Super-weird update: Actually, my mom says I did take karate, which ended when my dad stole all that stuff, coincidentally. Whoa.
` (Well not purely coincidentally, as my quitting karate was caused by my subsequent severe depression and constant thoughts of suicide: Not only did he beat me down, but he basically mind-raped me!)

Hey! NOW I really do remember! For example, I recall that my dad would make me eat breakfast before going there, and every single time this would happen I would have horrible, rancid diarrhea from it because my stomach wasn't ready for food yet.

Rather than karate lessons, I remember running back and forth between the dojo, in the front of the building, and the bathroom way in the back. Honestly, I think I spent more time in the bathroom than learning karate - it was so humiliating, especially when I had rancid diarrhea gas.

I also remember my dad driving me to karate every day. One day, we were at a stop sign at a two-way intersection with one car approaching from the left and one from the right. Suddenly and startlingly, he floored the gas pedal and the car went screeching into the intersection, narrowly missing the two other cars, one of which honked.
` Shaken, I looked at him with horror in my eyes. (One of the usual ways I looked at him.) He said, "Damn it! Who teaches people how to drive these days?" or something to that effect. Essentially, he made several comments which I thought were 'impersonations' of what the other drivers were thinking.
` I kept waiting for him to finally smirk and explain to me, 'You wanna know why I did that?' but instead he said, "Some people just shouldn't be allowed to drive! Did you see what that asshole back there did?"

No wonder I found it much easier to not pay attention to the world! It sure didn't match what he said about it!

I also remember the time I had to walk home from karate because he didn't show up as he usually did to lecture the other students on things nobody cared about, nor believed, before driving me back home.
` About seven hours after the end of class, I finally trudged through the front door, dragging my duffel bag o' karate equipment.
` He called down from upstairs, with a smile; "What were you two off doing?"
` Who? Me and my imaginary talking car? Or was he referring to my mud-encrusted duffel bag?

Now you see why I've blocked out the memories, eh? And yet... I don't seem to remember any actual karate lessons, nor from whom, though I do weirdly remember that one of the students was a former drummer for Humble Pie.
` His name was Scott.

Evidentally, those were the types of things I thought to be most important for remembering back then. No wonder I don't remember growing up - although, this is NOTHING compared to the things I don't remember happening in my next post!

***

Continuing as before....

How could I forget all this stuff? It all came from my own house, according to a piece of paper found with the rubbings. I mean... my dining room linoleum? Come on! I don't remember the floor? The coasters? The mirror?

One thing I do remember, however, is the Armadillo-Shaped Ocarina. I remember it because I was the one who smashed it one night. You see, it was ugly as hell, and I was really sick of people saying, "Oh, you're such an artist! Did you make that?"
` It really was an insult to my sculpting skills! Now, without the ocarina, they couldn't accuse me of making such an ghastly atrocity.

One other thing; I do have fond memories of the World Book Dictionary of 1977; because I was thinking a lot about language (without much idea of how to, I might add), I would look through that thing for hours on end!

And now... whatever these are supposed to be....

They're cool, but I don't know what they are.

Now, here's another one similar to the first, though it also has fun things like old coins from all over the world - including a huge 'antique' American penny! (I wonder if it's worth only one cent still?)

Finally, though you may not be terribly excited about texture rubbings, and I'm not really sure how artful they really are, my next post has some seemingly inexplicable and sehr sonderbares Material... Ernsthaft!