It's been a very long time since I've had time to do a proper update - since I made Amandine for Hjalmar, I believe. It's been a really messy few weeks. I'm a very good driver, but I'm nervous at night, and as it's Winter and "night" has come to mean "four o'clock", I'm perpetually out in the dark, spinning my wheels while people with their brights on blind me from behind in my side-mirrors. "Nervous" also means that I try to stop at every yellow light, which might mean slamming my foot down to break if I'm cruising along at forty miles an hour or so.Operating machinery in the dark doesn't seem like the kind of thing to be intrepid about, but it's what I need to do if I hope to become a better driver. My apologies to any of you I maim on the way to the supermarket, I'm just trying to get better at something I'm not very smooth with. If I get a Yugo, I've got to be seamless, as to never risk breaking its tiny little obsolete body.
A lot of crap has transpired since my last entry, which is why it's been so long:
I've been trying to twist Alex's arm to try and get him to contact Turning Point, a local shelter, so that he and his mother will not be homeless, should his grandparents' patience with them as tenants slowly wear thing again. It never hurts to be prepared, even though he asserts that they've a home now that his Mother and grandmother have patched things up. Sometimes, truces are short-lived, you know?
Agustin and Patrick are slowly befriending each-other oncemore. It's a slow process, and it's just begun - I think it's largely their focus with this presumed status of "Boyfriend" and "Girlfriend". Frankly, I think if they were to offer the same care and interest they shared before their falling-out some time ago, and mutually disregarded the titles associated with those emotions, they would both be happier people. I'm also trying to keep their tempers in check - they're both very good and kind people, but when one gets angry, the other gets indignant, and angry in return. Instead of two calm people resolving their differences - which should be easy, as they know so much about each-other - they wind up with synchronized volcanic eruptions, and then head separate ways for a good while. I've already tried to stress what they have, and the disregard for title. Now I've just got to sow seeds, and hope they have the tools to recognize when they're close to a melt-down and need to take a moment to recompose.
Christmas is around the corner. I've been saving diligently. I was expecting to spend a whole lot more than I did. Which is just around one-hundred fifty dollars. I plan to pay half of Emily's loan from Catherine - we'll handle that expense together. That'll leave me with two-hundred fifty dollars to spare, which will become eight-hundred fifty if I don't get any scholarships in upon my entry to college. I feel like a fairly good budget-holder, but this is also all planning. Scheming, I suppose. Meddling.
People aren't-
Shit, I actually forgot to account for someone I was buying for. Maybe two, even.
I haven't bought them gifts as I've been a bit clueless as to what to buy them. I'll work on that later, and then crunch the numbers. Kindly disregard that "I feel like a fairly good budget-holder" bit, because I'm woefully premature. Son of a bitch.
Alright. That's a little stressful, but I'll just list it all out and see what I can do.
Composure regained. Shazam.
In recent news, my Uncle - that is, Charles, the drunken one - has tried to kill himself. He's been a hot mess as of recent, because he was out racing his truck like a moron and blew out his engine. It was a loaned vehicle and not really his, but he had no way to get to work, so instead of hitching with a friend or something, he goes out and gets shitfaced in his despair, and then gets fired for sleeping-in with a hang-over. Getting fired causes him to get into a fight with this girl he's dating - who's frankly a good candidate for appearing of Jerry Springer - and he promptly says he's not going to marry her, and they part ways. No car, no job, no girl. He decided he'd off himself, and ran to the hospital claiming to have ingested an entire bottle of sleep-aids. As it would turn, he was just really boozed-up and talking nonsense.
If you can't be a good example, I suppose that makes you a terrible warning. I'd better stay well enough alone from intoxication. Perhaps a drink here and there, but no getting drunk for me.
In closing, I've rolled-up all my character designing as of late into one character, "Krmmstopp". She's a very Jean Marat kind of character. She's got a mess of shoulder-length curls and is confined to a gas-mask style respirator, but as I don't see myself hop-stepping to any RPG in particular, I've not begun fleshing her home or family out much.
She suffers from a condition that I've decided will be affectionately dubbed "Rustlung", where in her blood has trouble both picking up and parting with Oxygen, which leaves some of it oxidizing and some of it stagnating. Her muscles have begun to atrophy, her immune system is weak. Dull bruises and discolored splotches. You get the gist of it.
Well, basically, instead of just accepting the hand she's dealt, and confining herself to her wax-cloth overcoat and respirator, she decides that the adventurous life she wanted is still very much possible, if only through a flexible perspective. She begins writing the "Universal Almanac". I imagine it to be this kind of...First-person Wikipedia. This sickly woman's efforts to compile all the knowledge, understanding, and information she possibly can before her death. Culture, Religion, Dance, Combat, Schematics, Recipes, Language, Alphabets, Magic, Chemistry, Alchemy, Maps, Politics, Etiquette, Medicine, Science, Physiology, Psychology, Anatomy, Dialogues from Famous People...
All sorts of stuff. Anything she can get ahold of. Stuff sometimes she doesn't understand or can't explain. Just compiling it in the Universal Almanac, tediously and meticulously from her bathtub, where she spends her evenings without her respirator at a typewriter, processing insane loads of information at a time, and sometimes sketching charts and diagrams.
I wanted her to be from a sea-side town, which is the sole reason there's a boat and ship-wheel on the cover. In addition, I've decided she will occasionally contact people who are experts in fields she does not understand, hoping to gain information with regard to it. If the person complies, she lists them in the bibliography as members of the Atelier Maiden's Plot.
I like that title, as it just means something akin to "Scheming Girl's Workshop". I figured it was very apt, and that she would initially be the sole member, but also pass out small cards of membership, telling people that they've just contributed to the written collective of the world's knowledge, and should hold onto that slip of paper, as it will one-day recognize them as a face in history.
Tragic, Ambitious, Ugly, Beautiful, Intellectual, but Dreamy...
There's a lot of duality with Krmmstopp, and I think that will make her very versatile.
I want to begin making fake "pages" for the almanac, fervently documenting mundane or at times, outright fantastic and outlandish things.
But here is the cover.
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