I have had a challenging week. It has not been traumatic or even dramatic, but the stress level this week has been elevated in some expected and unexpected ways. Things sort of crescendoed Tuesday evening and rode out an unpleasant ominous rhythm on my soul throughout the day Wednesday. Pardon my very belabored poetic license there. You have to remember when reading this that I do enjoy hearing myself speak even when it is just narrating my blog posts in my own head.
Writing about what stresses me out is tempting at times. I believe that played a big part in killing some of my old blogs. When things get too real and too personal the blogs stopped feeling like a somewhat cheeky narrative of the things I observe and feel about the world and started to feel like the bitter musings of a sad, sometimes lonely man. To compartmentalize, I do all my bitter diatribes within the confines of my journal which you can find at www.davidsjourn... No. I am kidding.
Monday evening I knew I was building toward a stressful week. After the rest of the household were sound asleep and tucked into their beds I found myself in my office working on my sketching skills. To be fair, I was a bit wound up from an understandable reason. Dad had another minor malfunction with his motorcycle.
Let me say right up front he did not wreck. He is fine. The bike is fine. His Kawasaki jumped its chain while chugging up the hill on the switch back curves just above Big Ridge state park. A bike dumping its chain can be disastrous. In this case it was not. If Dad had been carrying all the proper things with him it wouldn't even have been a to do.
Alas, Dad was not carrying everything he should have been. Want to know the primary thing he was missing? His cell phone was left at home. Had he had his mobile with him he would have had a light which would have let him see that the chain was off. He could have raise the bike on to its center service stand and with a little finesse he could have rolled the chain right on the sprocket and ridden on home.
How do I know this? First, I am a decent mechanic. Secondly, when Dad finally did manage to get himself back to the house and we went to rescue the motorcycle from where he had dumped it in a ditch on the side of the road just after a nice 10 mile-per-hour switchback curve I watched him easily roll the chain on to the sprocket. After a bit of straining and some creative mud slung by the drive wheel of the Kawasaki he rode the motorcycle onto the trailer and we came home.
I was not super stressed over that adventure. Once again a situation that could have become dangerous or even deadly passed with Dad unharmed. Another kind soul helped him out. She saw his bike on the side of the road and when he saw stopped headlights he walked back. This good Samaritan drove him home. We don't live super far from Big Ridge, but it was a very kind act and I am super thankful. It is about a six mile walk from where he was stranded into Maynardville. Also, Dad has no phone numbers memorized so who knows if getting to that little town would have seen him home.
I wasn't exactly stressed once we got him and the bike home safe. I was more just not ready to settle in to sleep. I sat down to sketch. I have been wanting to put together some of my more traditional work. The books I have been working from are of a more cartoon-like style than I am accustomed to. I have been a bit embarrassed about it in a strange way, but I have always had a fascination with drawing more provocative figure art.
Alright. I will be more direct. I drew lots and lots of nude and seminude women over the years. While I can draw anything, I find drawing that type of thing satisfying, I will probably always have a 14 year old boys affection for the female form. Yep. That includes drawing boobies.
Since I have been back at regular sketching I have had this strange hesitation about it. I have kept things safe to the point of Disney. When something more inappropriate popped through my head I just couldn't bring myself to draw it out. I have been enjoying sharing my work online and I realized that I didn't want to have people judging me for... well... drawing tits and ass. I don't want to be seen as a pervert. I wanted to be seen as an artist and not even a perverted artist at that.
Still, it has bugged me moving away from the work I have practiced for decades. I have had the privilege of having many women model for me. Those sketches will always be some of the most near and dear to my heart. Why was I afraid to draw even a curvy character like Black Cat or Emma Frost?
I still don't know. It was bugging me. I sat down to do something about it with a how to draw book I have had for years. Erotica Manga is a book I picked up to try and learn more about the Japanese style. Manga and Anime bridge an interesting gap between a cartoonish style like Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry and the traditional American comic book character that I know and love. For example, there are panels of One Punch Man that look more like a comic strip from the newspaper and others that are exquisitely elaborate nearly photo realistic in quality. It makes for a cool medium.
I thumbed through Erotic Manga three times before deciding to just sketch something from the front of the book. It isn't my favorite sketch from the book, but I do not hate it. I knew it would be something I could invest some time in to unwind even doing multiple variants as I built out a final picture. I needed that to settle me for the night.
I finished the pencil work fairly certain that I wanted to do more. I knew instantly I wasn't going to post that to any of my social media. It isn't completely obscene or anything, but our culture has a strange relationship with the nipples of humans who happen to identify as female. That fear of judgement made me instantly know I was going to work on covering her up a bit. I scanned the initial sketch and kept working on my pencils.
This go round I felt confident enough with the sketch to work on my shading. I don't know if I can call it a pro tip since I am not a pro, but drawing in the nipples in the appropriate places help to align them when you eventually cover them up. Silhouettes and outlines just work better when you are actually covering something up. This is true for the penis as well. Yes, I am not sexist in my art. I have drawn many a nude man in my day as well.
Finishing the sketch a second time, I was really happy with the work. I was almost tempted to stop there and crash. I also knew I had been neglecting my marker work lately. Most everything I have done this month was in pencil or colored pencil. I went back to work inking.
I guess I should really call this process outlining. If I were truly inking there would be shading and you'd end with the ink version of the 2nd sketch. I think of this phase of a picture as finalizing my line work. I can clean up goofy little errors in my pencils. Normally that just sets me up to make fun mistakes with my markers.
This turned out well. There are a few places where I dabbed a bit outside the lines. I don't work digitally very often for that very reason. Seeing a dab of marker outside the outline after I have completed a work keeps me practicing hard. I have yet to finish a single work where I didn't have a bit of over color or an obvious mistake. Still, I ended Monday night which had turned into a very early Tuesday morning. I went to bed, read a few pages on the kindle and slept soundly.
When the most unexpected stress hit me midday Tuesday I was no alright. I went full panic attack. The bad part was I could not stop working to have a meltdown. I needed to get alone and just scream at the top of my lungs," NO! No! NOOOO!.' for a few minutes in a throat ripping outburst. Instead I kept working and got through my day.
Stress is a real thing. I know I have to deal with it when it is still manageable or that monster will grow enough to cause me trouble. I try not to let stress turn me into a monster. Denied my ability to scream it out, which I admit is not super healthy, the next thing I really wanted was a good long time with something I could punch like a heavy bag. I will invest in a new one soon. I busted my old one.
Believe it or not that inclination isn't about violence. It is about getting overwhelming feelings out of my body. An spirited exchange of force is wonderful for exocizing the metaphorical demons. It is well worth lightly bruised knuckles to return to peace and serenity. The other thing beating on a heavy bag does is release those sexy endorphins in my brain. They tend to relax and soothe the savage breast even better than whatever song I am listening to. That playlist would shock the world.
I didn't really have the chance to do any type of exercise short of hopping on the exercise bike, doing some yoga, or work on some body weight exercises. None of those satisfy in the same way. By the time I was free of work archery wasn't an option due to darkness and cold.
Instead I decided I could indulge myself a bit and get myself calmed down. I had a sandwich for supper and followed it up with a fudge round. Now, one fudge round is not going to destroy my diet progress, but it had a profound calming effect on my stress level. I gave myself a little space to let my willpower lapse and eat bad. The return from that investment was my love of Little Debbie being unexpectedly expressed. I didn't even feel guilty.
Wednesday saw more and more stress piling up. Some of it I was able to resolve in the moment. Finding answers always feels good. Connecting to my people feels great. Having a vanilla milkshake in place of lunch was a nice pick me up as well. I wondered to myself while I finished that bit of sinful delight why little sugary treats like that hit so hard with me.
Thinking about it, I have to blame my Mom. That is to say I have to credit her with some of my stress management techniques that relate to food. It isn't necessarily a bad thing if it isn't constant. I remember well learning what a pick-me-up is. I was in the sixth grade.
The reason I feel socially awkward as an adult ties back to never feeling like I fit in anywhere as a kid. It is in my head. If I stopped questioning my place in most of the groups I belong to I am sure I fit in fine. There just never comes a point where I feel accepted. There is never time where I don't feel the need to show my value or why I deserve to be in a group. Telling myself that is an insecurity and not to try too hard to be cool, clever, glib, or funny is a constant battle in my head and heart. Everywhere. All the time.
It is stressful and sucks. Yes, I have addressed it with therapy. Yes, I have coping techniques. No. They do not change the underlying feelings.
I don't remember now what I came home all upset about, but I do remember getting in the car feeling extremely dejected. I remember brooding in the passenger seat while Mom drove. I remember knowing she could tell I was not ok. She tried to get me to talk about things, but in my sullen ten year old brain it was easier to be pouty and have an attitude than to start crying about whatever I was really feeling inside. I did not have healthy coping skills, but who does at the start of middle school?
Mom said,"How about we go for a pick-me-up?" I got the context, but I asked,"What do you mean?" She explained that a pick-me-up is a treat chosen to make you feel better. We picked an Icee from Weigel's that first go round. The experience of driving through the little store and buying Milk was almost as cool as getting a treat. The entire experience left me feeling better as she intended.
My favorite pick-me-ups over the years varied. I enjoyed going for an Orange Julius and those trips were memorable. I loved going for ice cream at the Freezo. I miss living on that side of town. The Weigel's gave us plenty of Icees and Corn dogs over the years. Sometimes we would hit the comic book store or a card shop. Sometimes we even just went for a nice drive.
Having an external trigger that helps to shake stress and make you feel better is powerful. I imagine that this is how people can easily end up addicted to cigarettes or drugs. Equating any substance with relief can be dangerous.
Pick-me-ups alone are not enough. My Mom installed them and their value in my life so that I could get myself started on dealing with a problem with a quick hit of good feelings. Last night's fudge round and today's vanilla shake are much better for me than screaming or hitting a punching bag. I do still plan to get the punching bag for the fact I can burn calories on it. Between those treats and some extra sleep last night I will get all of this stress figured out.
Man, I miss my Mom.
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