cheriann (has no native tongue)

aching

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:58:59 GMT

I've just had so many boyfriends decide to pick up and leave me for their ex's that now, though I've never really been the jealous type, seeing his ex begin to talk to him again makes me feel like my heart is imploding. Though he's said he can't stand her, he dislikes her, can't believe he ever dated her, etc, I find no comfort, as that's exactly what so many of my exes had said about their exes before leaving me for them or cheating on me with them. That's not to say I think that he will cheat. It's just that I can literally feel my heart devouring itself when I see what can only be interpreted to me as a pattern coming full circle yet again. And it's not like I can take solace in him having told me he wants to be with me forever or wants to get married as I've heard those things from others in my past as well. And I can't take solace in the fact that this ex of his has a boyfriend, because that's been the situation in the past as well. So I'm just struggling to maintain my calm. Deciding who he talks to is entirely his right. But how I feel is my right.

Giving on PCC

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:14:02 GMT

I'm thinking of giving up on PCC. Ian's got his own comic coming up that will probably be better, and will probably get way more popular, way more quickly. We set up a table for PCC at the Philly Alt Comic Con and none of our friends bothered to show. We shoveled over money for a table and printed out over 100 dollars worth of prints and the only things we sold were one print of Ironicals and 2 dollars worth of five cent Haikus. I spend all my time re-writing resumes and handing in applications, and working on the comic. I'm getting tired and frustrated. Of the fifty plus cards with our website on them that we handed out, we got maybe two new readers... I'm just running out of energy and desire.

I think it's just time for me to grow up and let go of any disillusions of ever having my voice heard or art seen.

Piss Poor

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:58:27 GMT

Just sold my super cute pink DS lite because I'm so poor I can't afford to buy games I'll actually play on it, and I have next to no money in my bank account for rent and bills. I'm sad about it because they finally made a game (GTA: Chinatown) that seems like I could actually enjoy it for the DS if it didn't cost 40 fucking dollars.

The webcomic is going back on hiatus again because I have to work on a painting that I really should have charged WAY more for, and then do a bunch of graphics design work for one of the most fickle men in the world (and when he picks a design he likes for more than five minutes, I'll have to paint it on the front and back of a gigantic effing sign)... again for a much lower price than the work is worth because I'm desperate.

This week I have to get prints made of my photographs so I can try desperately to sell them at a cultural festival in Gloucester City...

I'm burning out, fast. I need a good, regularly paying job that gets be home before 8 pm and allows me enough time to work on the comic, and other art at my own pace...

Schools coming back to haunt me.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:21:29 GMT

So yesterday was a nightmare. I got a letter from Stockton about the alumni association and choosing representatives for the classes to organize reunions and the such. Last week I was messaged about a cluserfuck in power transferrance for the Art Club, and for months I've been getting emails from student activities advisers and such because they haven't updated their records for club presidents and things... YESTERDAY, I was at Wendy's with Ian and my ex came in. The ex who fucked people while we were supposed to be in an exclusive relationship. The ex who went down on a guy at a party that I was fucking at... The ex who dumped me a week after I put my dog to sleep, and just five hours after saying he loved me, was in love with me, and wanted to be with me forever. The ex who mind fucked the shit out of me during and after the relationship. The ex who, after leaving me, took all our mutual friends, told them some crazy made up bullshit and made them all think that I was either still hung up on him, a crazy fucking bitch, or both. Yea, that one. He came into the Wendy's with this girl who, throughout our relationship he had told me he had a thing for, he thought was hot, and in retrospect, he most likely fucked while I was at college. Then I saw a fuckton of DHS alumn in the parking lot and whatnot on the way out. It makes me sick that I still live so close to my home town, since I hate about 95% of the people I used to go to school with. It makes me not want to leave my home. I just don't want anything to do with all the petty bullshit anymore. My whole life I said I was going to move away and leave Delran. Now, after going to college and hour and a half away, I'm back in Riverside... Which is only one town over from the shithole I grew up in. It really disgusts me when I think about how often I'm going to have to see ghosts from my high school past.

Dear Upstairs Guy

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:18:20 GMT

We are in our twenties. One of us is a writer/musician. The other is an artist. What's your excuse?

Do you have your own bowling alley? Do you have a trampoline which you use inside your apartment? Do you take part in Civil War reenactments? Is your favorite pass-time something which involves repeatedly dropping cinder blocks? Do you have regularly scheduled fist fights with a gorilla set amongst a fireworks spectacular display? Do you have a virtual reality combat simulator which uses real grenades for audio ambiance? Do you like to tie lifting weights to you shoes and pretend you're a giant monster, destroying a town? Are you trying to create the first ever music album composed entirely of thudding, stomping, bangs and repetitive creaking floor boards (which you chose to creak for more than forty minutes at a time)? Growing up, were you told that the only way to make a door close was to slam it so hard that your neighbors' windows rattled almost right out of their frames? May I ride your pet moose? It's only fair since I have to listen to it barreling around your apartment every moment that you are home.

We really like knowing when you're home, just by thinking, "has it been quiet for more than one minute," and if the answer's yes, you're out. We also like knowing the moment you return by hearing you slam the door so hard it would jar someone from a comatose sleep and then thundering up the steps. It's so very charming that you do that just to let us know that you're right upstairs in case we need anything. Oh and thanks for always moving our door mat two feet to the right. It was a mystery at first. We thought it was the mailman for the longest time. Until we fixed it Saturday night and then found it askew Sunday evening. Not that we mind moving two feet back to the left again every day. We just can't fathom what it is you need it two feet to the right for. Tell you what, if you can go one day without making pointless noise, without waking us at 4 am, we'll buy you your very own mat that you can keep two feet to the right of ours.

Oh, and thanks for flooding our bathroom. That was a really nice touch. Just the welcome present we were hoping for when we moved into the building. And then the letter you sent us about our TV being too loud, when we always have it so quiet that we need the closed captioning on so we can understand what's happening... that was so very thoughtful of you. Not hypocritical or arrogant at all. Remember when you went on that four day trip with that kid in his late teens/early twenties (who we're assuming is your son, because otherwise, you're a creep as well)? Those were the best four days of our lives in this apartment... except that your "son," much like you, parked rather douchishly on the white line (or rather, over and past it) between your spot and ours in the parking lot, making entry into the passenger side of our car next to impossible. We really enjoyed the daily challenge of squeezing in and out of the passenger side of the car (since the spots are so small, that for us to move over enough to have room to enter and exit freely, we'd have to park half in the other spot as well).

You're just a really awesome neighbor, Upstairs Guy. And the only reason I haven't shared your full first and last name here is because you're so awesome, I don't want people to try to take you away from us... I also don't want you to sue us for getting you stalkers who want desperately to be your friend, after reading how amazing you are.

Love,
Your not at all angry, fed-up, or tempted-to-punch-you-in-the-back-of-your-head, neighbors.

About the Convention

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:37:22 GMT

Pictures of Crying Children, my webcomic, had a table at the first ever Philadelphia Alternative Comic Convention on September 13th, 2009. The table didn't cost much and we decided it was the perfect chance to get more readers, so we bought a table, had some prints made, set up a 5 cent haiku station, and got to work.
So at the convention, we learned a few things. First, not five minutes after setting up shop, we learned that even the smallest of comic conventions are not immune to seriously rank, god-awful nerd BO. Second, we learned that the fastest way to make friends at a convention, as a vendor, is to be in need of supplies, or have supplies that others don't. Coming through with some double-sided tape, paperclips or scissors will make an instant friend out of your in-need neighbor. We also learned that when we're being entirely serious, and passing a note about said BO, to new-comers, the new-comers think we're being silly and outrageous and start to love us for this.
We also had the misfortune of encountering one really scary racist man, who angrily flipped through our comic prints while ranting about Jews and Blacks (his words, not our ours). We smiled and nodded and as he walked away, thanked god that our address and phone numbers weren't on the card we gave him before we realized how borderline Son of Sam he was.
We also met lots of cool people. Very cool artists and writers. We discovered some new (to us) comics that we're now super excited to know about. We also learned that there are A LOT of couples doing comics/webcomics together. Who would have guessed? We walked around and met some really cool vendors. We sat next to Cyn and Tannor, who are both artists, and their table which was set up for Cyn's really funny comics. Her webcomic can be found here: http://no-talent-hack.livejournal.com/18434.html

To catch everyone who actually reads this journal up, I've graduated college -woo! go me! And I've been living in Riverside with Ian Douchestrom, as I've taken to calling him, my super awesome boyfriend, and the writer for the webcomic.

If I'll actually stay on top of this LJ is a little hazy at this point, but I'll try.

Check out the webcomic:
picturesofcryingchildren.blogspot.com
cryingchildren.deviantart.com
twitter.com/cryingchildren

see my regularly kept blog:
http://todaytomorrowandtuesday.blogspot.com/

So I never update this. No surprise there...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:03:03 GMT

webcomic: http://picturesofcryingchildren.blogspot.com/
my regularly-kept blog: http://todaytomorrowandtuesday.blogspot.com/

The Final Week

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:09:48 GMT

Last weekend was lovely. Friday, Ian and I went to the Renault Winery, the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, and Red Robin. Then we went back to Delanco where we lounged about for pretty much the remainder of the weekend. Sunday, we went to his parents' for dinner, which was delicious, as always. All in all, a splendid few days, with some fun photos(click here to see them).

Now, I'm looking at the last week of my college education. It's kind of an epic journey, really. I've come so far and struggled quite a bit to do so, but I'm a stronger person for it. I picked up my year book and saw the "Congratulations from Family and Friends" section. To my surprise, my mother was notified about this and submitted something:

Being that I've always looked up to my mother, and I've never had any hesitation in telling others that she is my hero, the last line made me full on cry.

I think that once I finish all my work for the semester, the realization of the fact that my academic career is coming to an end will really hit me. And then I can hit the streets searching for a job and a place to live. In the mean time, I'm still stuck in student mode... Soon though, just one painting and two classes from now, I'll be finished with this chapter of my life.

obscurity

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:39:02 GMT

I keep expecting to wake up in bed alone- and have it be the 25th or 27th of February. None of his things in my apartment. The bottom drawer of my dresser filled only with my clothing. His guitars gone, his phone charger gone. The number of calls made to and missed calls from him in the single digits. No saved voicemail. Nothing spectacular and simple to indicate the life he and I have started to build.
And my fantasies kick in. The elaborate dreams of walking through a grocery store. With all our things together in one cart. I day dream about washing and folding his laundry. Our things having lived together in one hamper, and then danced furiously together in the machines. I muse over bringing him a beer after his day at work. I toil in my head with ideas of trimming his beard, tying his ties, helping him pick out clothes. My wildest fantacies end in the most domestic of places. My most elaborate, rampant, feverish, uncontrolable dreams end in the hamper next to a pair of his old socks.
I want it and need it all so badly. I feel sick. Ill. And he's oblivious to it. What the world will never know... And my head is a ticking time bomb, just tick tocking away with all these wild, almost violent, strangely sexual images. One after another, an ocean smashing and turning in on itself at the hands of a careless Greek god.
Somewhere beneath the surface, an undercurrent meshes with these domesticated flashes of heaven. In between his dirty boxers and the American cheese in our shopping cart, my rawest, most basic urge is running. Quiet and in the background. Just a constant dull humming of the abstract representation of the words: "intercourse. sex. fuck. foreplay. orgasm. climax. erection. pleasure. intercourse. sex. fuck."
These thoughts, this dull roar building up inside my head, they clash with my core values. They power the machines that wash our laundry, push the cart containing all our groceries. They flicker fast and violent in between the images of wholesome domestication.
And on the outside, I'm still. I'm unflinching in the face of these sordid slideshows of infamy. But I can't help but wonder how thoughts that feel so loud inside my skull can go un-heard by the people who pass me by.
These are my deepest secrets, and I feel like anyone who sees me can tell. I fall asleep next to the very object of my desire. And every morning, I expect to wake up alone. A month ago. None of his things around me. His smell not in my pillow. His half of the tiny twin bed not warm from his body. And I feel sick.

sometimes...

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:42:34 GMT

just sometimes...

What you might have missed...

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:15:31 GMT

Well, after a pretty lousy summer, for reasons I won't dive into, this school year is actually shaping up pretty nicely. I'm in five classes, and all my professors seem like fairly reasonable people. Of course, I'm an art major, which means many of my professors have been, will be, and are sometimes quite flakey.

I've also started writing two novels. I'm more emotionally attached to one of the novels than I am to the other, but all in all, I'm liking them. One is kind of similar to C.P.'s "Choke." That was unintentional, but it's proving to be beneficial. The other one is kind of a mesh of three or four (or more) different genres. It's kind of a FBI/mob/spy/hitman mix. I'm really fond of how it's coming along.

This semester, I also found out that I can graduate from college a whole semester early. I could actually graduate two semesters early if I took 6 classes next semester and 5 over the summer... But I'd rather not overload myself.

My 21st birthday is approaching, and I can't wait to purchase alcohol legally... and consume it legally as well. Haha. My roommate, Shannon, will be turning 20 on the 16th.

Speaking of roommates, my new roommates are working out quite nicely. Shannon, Sam, and Nicole are fairly bright, fairly courteous people. It's been a nice improvement over some of last year's experiences.

I'm going to try to keep on top of this thing more regularly now.

Thanks for reading. <3

sometimes...

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:30:04 GMT

i'll spend entire days fighting back the tears... and i won't really know why.

by the window, in the daylight, the world glows.

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:26:58 GMT

When I set up my computer to start working on my art commissions, my novel, and the webcomic, I usually set up near a large window. I work there, periodically looking out the window...

I do this for one reason, and it's not the lighting. I do it so that on the days that the lawn mowing and weed wacking guys come, I can stare at them in fascination. They're not particularly gorgeous or anything... But they're very entertaining.

The mower guy, he flies around on his standing riding mower. He goes so fast that I actually really question the quality of the cut job when he's done. He goes much too fast not to miss several clumps. But I imagine, that he's pretending to be racing a chariot, as there's really no need to go nearly that fast.

The wacker guy, well sometimes, as he's walking to the next weed to be wacked, he like, waves the wacker around in the air, like he's imagining fighting some creature, like 7 year olds do.

It's all very entertaining.

about my disorder

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:53:55 GMT

There are some days that I just wish I had never been born. That I wasn't alive. Today is one of those days. And it seems, with the various mental terrorists that I call my family, that these days are more and more frequent.

On these days, the future disappears. The present is a blur, and all that you see is the ever reaking past. Every time you weren't good enough. Every person you let down. Every person who let you down. All the things that eat you. All your flaws. All that exists on these days are why your life should never have been lived. All there is in your world is a million, billion reasons that you are a waste of everything that's ever been given to you. All there is on these days, are endless lists of reasons that the world would have been better off without you...

And on these days, there's no light at the end of the tunel. You're in the smallest of small black rooms without doors or windows or cracks for you sneak a glimmer of hope through. On these days, not being here for tomorrow never sounded so good.

How do you greet a stranger?

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:47:53 GMT

How do you greet me? Well, I don't think there's any one right way... But I can share a variety of wrong ways.

1) "hEy BaBy GiRl" [and its derivitives]
2) "why don't you take a break from your vow of celibacy for me?"
3) "yo. ur hott. why dont u hav no full body pics?"
4) "Har Har Har, I'm a local chess champion. We should get together and play some time."
5) "(I didn't read your profile, I'm way older than you'll talk to, way way far away, speek terrible english even though it's my first and only language, and don't like anything indie, or anything else that you do for that matter, I just think you're pretty, and because I didn't read your profile, I didn't see that you won't sleep with me because you're in the middle of a vow of celibacy.")
6) (I'm openly a womanizer in my profile, and I'm openly an ignorant fucker toward fat people, ugly people, people of different backgrounds than myself, and I've just messaged you... and to your shock, I look like one of the people I'd hate because I apear to have been hit by the ugly bus repeatedly.) [not that I judge people who are less than super-model in their apearance, but I DO judge shallow d-bags who are nasty to everyone else when they have no place to be.]

Reasons for 1-4

1) First, the every other letter thing wasn't cool in middle school. It's not cool now. Second, If you call me baby girl, I'll stab you in your stupid wanna-be-ghetto face. My cousin is ghetto, alright. And that cousin doesn't even use the computer, much less type like a douchebag on it. So please, leave me the hell alone if you honestly think that's a good way to greet someone.
2) Way to just tell me straight up that you only want to sleep with people, that you're a manwhore, that you're a self-involved pomous ass, and that you think I'd be more than willing to be a slut at the request of some stranger who may very well have an STD.
3) Again, you're illiterate. And again, you're a ghetto-wanna-be loser. And adding to that, I'm not on the internet so you can J.O. I'm on the internet on the off chance that I might meet someone who has a brain and wants to go on a date or two. And if I choose not to be an internet slut, that's my choice.
4) My username might have the word "checkmate" in it, and that is an indication of the fact that I enjoy the occasional chess game. It's also meant as semi-emo user name to look a little cute. And yes, I enjoy chess on occasion, but I'm a girl. A normal girl, and a game of chess is not my idea of a hot date. If it sounds like a hot date to you, then you're just too much of a geek for me.

If you need an explaination of 5 and 6, then seriously, don't even talk to me.

Marilyn Manson consert.

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:32:57 GMT

It. Was. Amazing. A. May. Zing. And I want to have his babies.
One complaint: Not. Long. Enough.

Otherwise, fantastic.

the thing i hate about my grandma...

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:11:24 GMT

is being baby talked... like i'm three... or maybe like i'm a puppy. and having her explain every little thing to me... even technology on occasion... which she knows nothing about, and i'm more than proficient with. and having her ask me question after question, even after i've answered them all, or after i've told her i have no idea. getting stuck behind her when i'm walking anywhere... because she goes about as fast as a dying snail. or watching tv shows or movies and having her ask me question after question about the movie... when we've both been sitting together, seeing the same thing as the other guy.

i mean, i love her and all... but she's driving me crazy.

I hate

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:13:29 GMT

being blamed for conflicts that are not my fault.

So my grandmother strolls into the kitchen where my cousin, Sean and my aunt, Ann and I are all standing, talking.
My grandmother spurts out something about Hillary Clinton and who we'd vote for for president. Well, Sean and Babka go back and forth for about five minutes. Then I talk for about 1 minute and leave the room to get something from two rooms over.    I come back into the kitchen as Babka, who has continued to go on about Republicans and Bush and blah blah blah, is just leaving. Then Ann says to me, "you just had to egg her on? You just had to keep poking at her, and arguing with her. Now she's gonna be pissed all night and I'm going to have to put up with it. You couldn't just shut your mouth and let her go until she was done? Now I'm going to have to put up with it because I'm the only republican in the house."
And all I can think is, "YOUR SON's the one who started arguing. I just talked for like 45 seconds and moved on. Your son hung out and argued with her in the begining and then kept arguing with her after I left the room. How the fuck is any of this my fault?"
So now my aunt's all pissy with me, and my grandmother is completely fine and not pissed off at anyone. Tell me how any of that is fair. Tell me how it's completely cool that I take the wrap for something I didn't do, and get pissed off at because my aunt doesn't want to be pissed off at by my grandmother- who, by the way, isn't.
What the fuck?

As for what art IS

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:36:12 GMT

So I'm sure you've seen my rant about what art isn't... This is my rant about what real art is (to me at least)
Well, I think art, for one doens't necessarily have to be visual. But art itself needs: composision, forethought, after thought, editing, toiling, emotion and/or a story... Art should be something you would be willing to play on public radio, or in a theater, or hang on your living room wall, or in a gallery. Art is something that someone else who is an artist in your genre will understand, an artist outside your genre will appreciate, and a person who isn't an artist will study. Art is a reflection of the creator and/or the enviornment in which it was created. Be it, the government, the ecosystem, whatever, Art is window beyond just "oh, isn't that pretty."

new icons...

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 05:12:42 GMT

I made some. Go check them out and let me know that you think. mmkay?

thoughts on art

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 04:31:00 GMT

ugh.
1) SNAPSHOTS are NOT art. tourist pictures are not art. PHOTOGRAPHY is planned, has composition, and usually some sort of emotive feature.
2) work done poorly in paint is not art. I was bumping out that crap when I was like ten.
3) I'll accept icon-making as an art only under these circumstances: the icons are thought out. they are eye catching, and/or they tell a short story. they are icons OF art. they aren't crappy quality or stolen straight the hell from somewhere else with no tweaking of any sort.

I'm sorry. but that's how I feel. I'm sick of seeing people's 6th grade work and out of focus junior prom snapshots being posted as art on deviantART. That's what photobucket is for. Seriously.

Now, if you're not an artist, you can still make art. good art. That's a fact. Either through great toiling and discipline, or great filter work on photoshop, or both, someone who wouldn't typically be considered to be a good artist, can very easily produce good art.

BUT, I tell you this, if you call yourself an artist, it DOES NOT MEAN that every photo you take or every image you produce is art. They aren't. Period. AND if you call yourself an artist, you should fucking KNOW that snapshots ARE NOT art. And that crappy, pixelated garbage is NOT art. You CAN make good art on paint. I have done it before. BUT if you're on deviantart, a site FOR ARTISTS and good ART WORK, then you had goddamned better not slap up some crappy 6th grade microsoft paint work and out of focus junior prom snapshots onto the site. When you do that, NO ONE takes you seriously. Not as an artist or as a person.

There, I said it.

farscape

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:57:47 GMT

I feel very much like one of those strange, aimless late night wonderers from Night Hawks. For the last few nights, I've been awake while the sun was starting to come up.
This evening, I'm spending my insomnia on 'Farscape.' ...Which, dispite my love for the series, is actually pretty terrible. Right now, a glow stick is supposed to be Scorpius's do-dad power source type of dealy. Yes, that's right, they grabbed a glow stick from the dollar store, and without any alteration to the object, decided to use it as a highly visible object - and center of a 2 minute scuffle between Scorpius and Crichton.
ALSO, has anyone else noticed how semi-slutty Chiana is? Does anyone else kind of want her to mack it with Ka D'Argo like crazy? I wonder what their babies would look like... Photoshop opportunity? I think so.

oh, I almost forgot

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:08:29 GMT

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix last night. With Shannon and her friend Sarah. It was pretty decent. I'll post the review for it later on today.
First we baught our tickets, then we went to the mall and grabbed some pizza. Then we went back to the movie theater and stood in line, waiting to be let into the theater. And over the course of less than two hours, I was amazed by how many truely stupid people there are in the world, not to mention the DC region. It tended, yesterday, to be flighty, twit females more so than males. That shouldn't really surprise me I guess, since I tend to hate girls for that reason.

I had a weird dream last night.

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:59:18 GMT

I had a weird dream last night... Well, I actually had a series of weird dreams last night. The one that I can still remember clearly though is this: I woke up, as if it were a regular day, and I hopped on the computer. I checked my okcupid, my myspace, my deviant art, my old lj's, and my email. Then I checked my new lj. And on mynew lj, there was a comment from JB. Her comment read something to the affect of she still cares for me, she was sorry, she wasn't mad at me all this time, and that she really wanted to see me when I got back in Jersey. So I, now having been pissed off at her past the point of no return, deleted the comment, and made no attempt to contact her. The I went downstairs and met Shannon in the kitchen and told her about it. Then, Shannon said to me, "Well, she is technically still your girlfriend. So you should probably at least tell her it's over if you don't want to fix your relationship." And that's about the time I woke up. ...Because as some people know, I in fact, was NOT dating Jess. Jess was not ever my girlfriend... And all that was really odd to me.

women i love love love.

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:36:14 GMT