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  • welcome to the hole

    welcome to the hole

    Once upon a time, I kept a LiveJournal account, gryphons_hole, a deep, dark, comfy little hole in my brain where I kept notes on my life and queerness.

    This is the archive to that account, mostly password protected, adult, queer content, stripped of photo content after the site restructured its photo hosting feature. I hope to restore that content as well.

    If I know you, ask for the password. If I don’t, hope for a generous mood.

    08.18.24 I have realized a need to continue in this space. A kink reawaking if you will, with content that may range into inappropriate for my other blog spaces.

  • Last Saturday, I spent a chunk of time with the artsy folk, namely Apryl, owner of the Slap-N-Tickle.

    In the course of the evening, I strolled with her through some of my 30×30 photos and clothing-slash-costume stuff I have been messing with lately. She. Loved. It.

    In fact, she wants photos for her Erotic Show next February.

    I have to work out how I am going to make the prints. I have a few options and have a respectable photo printer myself that can produce up to 8×10. I just don’t know about the archivability of it all… I am okay with lower price points to reflect that and to move the queerness of my images into the world.

    I still have to battle with the idea of always being my own model; whether or not it is narcissistic.

    For now, I will let that go, since the clothes are fitted to me and I am not ready or yet willing to take on tailoring duties for others.

    The biggest chore for all this…?
    Clearing a space in the studio where I can hang a drop and not have so much messy background crap.

    I am excited about this. I need some information. I need a few things left for the shoots themselves. I have already begun putting together the costumes and taking notes on the contents and poses of each… I spent most of Sunday darting about with garments and such *squee*ing like a school girl.

    Yay!

    , ,

  • the paradox

    An image struck me as I was returning for a therapy session.
    A strong image…

    Outwardly, I am this bull of a man. Huge, stubborn, unbending. I am intense and solid and unmoving against the winds. This part is obvious to the world.

    But…

    Inside of me is this whirling dervish. This enormous ball of energy that never stops, never sits still. Fast, furious, consuming. Without the brick wall exterior, I would have burned out years ago; a wisp of smoke on the breeze.

    This is the rock star mantra of dying young and leaving a pretty corpse.

    These are my halves. This is my struggle.

    People have done their best to push me out of my stronghold, to imply my stubbornness is a down-fall, mostly for their own self-serving ends. I have always understood that my wall, my bull, has kept me alive. The fireball is death, not unhealthy, but rushing towards the end. My bull slows the process. It is why I lived past nineteen years of age. It is, in part, how I survive cancer and AIDS. It is how I manage to survive the impact of living larger than life.

    The fireball is really the source of not expecting a long life. Rash decisions and impulsive behavior.

    I have mostly through my life only catered to one of the other. I suspect my current frustrations lie within the attempts to finally deal with these two opposing things simultaneously.

    The merger of the halves is physically observable. My changing habits have raised my metabolism and trimmed down the massive wall I used to be. I am only become the slightest bit frail, but in that I see I am now also breakable.

    I understand the value and danger of each side of the dynamic. I look forward to unifying them.

    I describe my brick-ness as a bull. I suppose I could describe my fire – my drive, my charge – as a ram. It could make sense.

    This is why I choice to support the metaphors and archetypes of astrology.

    This is also where I mention that I am the very first day of Taurus. The first degree of it. Only forty-one minutes into the curve of the sign, which leaves me very much on the cusp. Of Aries.

    I enjoy the metaphor here, because it helps me to communicate to the world exactly what burns inside of me; my drive, my struggle, my choices…

  • smelly things

    I was a floral designer over the course of eight and one half years in five shops and three states.
    How did I not know that pompom mums smell so bad…?

    I picked up a mixed bunch of flowers last weekend just because… I hadn’t had cut flowers in over two years.

    *gasp*

    I know!

    It was a cheap bunch, but the colors appeased me greatly, so home they came.

    I have spent a chunk of the last few days sniffing my feet for smelly shoes…

    Seriously! What stinks?

    LOL

    The things almost smell like the flesh of a carved up pumpkin.

    Not wholly unpleasant for someone with a… penchant… for unique smells, but it took a long time to hunt the source.

    Again…

    How did I not know this…?

    Huh.

  • epiphanies

    A dear friend posed a query in an email while we were discussing our similar states of ‘off-ness’…

    Do you find yourself wondering why you keep on?

    It led to some great understanding about myself and my life, things I know but never get into words before now.

    My answer:
    I don’t get the why-to-keep-on-thing, but I currently live in the ‘gods, I do nothing in the world’ phase… I am not sure I consider myself in the world enough to ponder why I stay in the world…

     

    Point blank: My worlds have always been more: more colorful, more creative, more inviting… than the outer world…

    That makes it hard to ever get to the daily things I need to do in my life, like doctor’s appointments and contacting help organizations….

    The worlds in my head have always been more captivating than most of the outer world. That is part of why I latch on so strongly to people that pique my curiosity and draw me out of my head. It is a rare moment for me. In this space, I get to thinking that I must be autistic.

    I know what it means to suggest it. I am not making light of the condition or labelling it as a trend-of-the-day.

    When I withdraw in the middle of exchanges, it is more subtle. I will end the conversation enough to move on, or I will turn sour and argumentative.

    I feel so much inside of me, all these labels and conditions and disorders. And yet, I don’t think I am extreme enough to be diagnosed. I feel them all. At work last week, I offered that my ADD doesn’t interfere so much with my job, because my OCD cancels out most of it. Funny, yes, but also accurate in a sense.

    Most of the distraction I normally fight is resolved at work because I am so focused on learning new skills, namely my machine and book-binding. When coworkers gather around me too much, I still lose focus… I have to fight it or tell them to shove off and chat somewhere else…

    Back to my response to the question:
    I am not sure I consider myself in the world enough to ponder why I stay in the world…

    I think I mean this. I live more in my own world than the one that surrounds me. This makes contemplation of the ‘why-am-I-here’ ilk more difficult. I don’t think i really am here most days. I have sporadic moments of the it’s-a-wonderful-life phenomenon: i ponder what if the world would be different if I had never been. The last major one was shortly after chemotherapy…

    But I think that is more a curiosity exercise than anything prompted by depression.

    I haven’t had any suicidal thoughts since nineteen years of age. It was an ugly year for me, what with fighting my parents for what I wanted to study in college and coming out and all. A big year. Once I got the point that offing myself did little but pile my shit onto the shoulders of the folks for whom I care deeply, I was pretty good in that department.

    This statement opens things for me. That one philosophy class back in college pushes all those theories of existence up to the surface in it. Descartes never really left my brain, even though I never fully got the class. I wonder how much I doubt my own existence… the outer world, too. That one is more from my stubborn nature. I want to believe such a wicked place is a nightmare from which I can awake.

    I understand the danger in that. To see the world as imagined is to dismiss its evil instead of fighting to dissolve it. It makes me delusional instead of an agent of healing and growth. All that said, my mind is more real than anything else.

    Lately, I have been fighting the sense of accomplishing nothing in my life. I don’t believe it so much as occasionally define accomplishments based on others instead of my own terms. Not good, I know.

    I am exactly where my life as led me, which is the only place I can ever be.

  • Protected: nudity month – fruit juice

    Protected: nudity month – fruit juice

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  • Protected: because – sometimes – I do as I’m told…

    Protected: because – sometimes – I do as I’m told…

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  • Protected: time for the weekend newd

    Protected: time for the weekend newd

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  • Protected: I am really for the *whole* spiel…

    Protected: I am really for the *whole* spiel…

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  • Protected: midweek nudity

    Protected: midweek nudity

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  • taking risks, learning things…

    taking risks, learning things…

    I have been wanting to experiment with dye. Specifically, trying to produce a color umbrage on clothing.

    The first attempt is a bit off. I should have gotten a spray bottle of water to keep the upper part of the jeans wet as I progressed up the pant leg. The marbling effect is from the denim drying out and not taking dye evenly. I am not sure if I like it, it feels a bit too tie-dye/hippie to me. Nothing against tie-dye/hippie things, I just wanted a subtle effect.

    The nice thing about all this experimentation, when most of the clothing cost an entire twenty-five cents, I don’t stress about ruining them in the process. I can just keep playing until I hit something I like.

    Which leads me to the next set.

    The jacket is a grey herringbone wool.
    The trim is slate blue rabbits fur.

    I am pretty happy with the results.

    The jacket has been some work.

    The original lining was shredded. I got another quarter jacket for the lining and cut it out. I was so lucky in it all. The replacement lining fit into this jacket perfectly, to the shoulders, the sleeves and both inside pockets…

    It is unfinished. The lining is peaking out in the image. Buttons need to be replaced. One cuff is not yet fully stitched into place, but it is done enough for a shoot.

    I need to revisit these outfits with the camera. Better lighting, close-up details. The dot on the tie is a piece of costume jewelry. Faux pearl and rhinestones. It barely shows up…

    I enjoy the making and I like the visual results of all of this. I am happy to be doing it, but yet realize how poorly I am managing my time in it all. I need to get back to the drawing table, too.

    I want all this to be an addition in my creative processes, not a substitute…