Here's a pixel for the books: This is one that I over exposed to get these vibrant colors. Completely unfinished and unedited, this is one of my favorite pieces I've ever captured.



















This one is of cut reeds in winter - one of my favorite shots





















Lastly, one of my Grandmother's flowers - I fell in love with the deep grape color in this shot:




So long for now, readers. I shall return with more pixels for your viewing pleasure - Currently, I'm working on a colored glass series that is sure to please the eye! I've yet to finish 'fire fight' but I'm hopeful <3

Ipod Infatuation.

I did it. I broke down and bought an ipod. I cared so little about ipods that I don't even know which letter to capitalize. I loved my Zune, and I know that the Z is what gets capitalized because it's a proper name of an item, and it follows traditional grammatical rules. Not the iPod, Ipod, IpOd? In any case, I bought one. A big one, an expensive one, and a shiny one. It should come in the mail on Monday. I'm dying to touch it now. (that's what she said.)

It's ugly and grey in Indiana today, and all I really want to do is curl up on the couch and load a crap ton of media onto my new toy. Well, secretly I want to go take pictures as well, but I'm running a little short on inspiration. Oh, what I would give for a sky full of bright clouds and a box of crayons.

Even spell check doesn't know the correct capitilazation of ipod.

Click. Click. Resume.

It's resume time: time to begin again. For everyone else, the first of the year starts, well, at the 1st of the year. For me, it starts somewhere around mid February or early March. I'm a procrastinator, I suppose.

I've got a thousand tiny projects going, and I'm feeling the need to really focus some energy into production. I've started to embroider, and I love it dearly. I am also trying to go back to school, and taking up photography again. I suppose one of two things must be true: I either lack the focus to really commit time and effort to one project, or I have enough creative energy to apply to every project, and simply haven't figured out how to do it yet.


My lady bought me a fantastic new camera, and I think that beautiful things are yet to come.

In the meantime, here are some things to think about:

Gigantic bottle of lotion.

Buffalo.

Murphy Moo.

Lick it, Australia.

Otherwise entitled, Birth Control

Went out for First Friday with Stip on Friday night and had an absolute blast. Went to a couple galleries, nommed on some free food, and enjoyed some wonderful company.

We learned a few lessons that night:

1) The people who charge the most for their art have the best food. Nachos, gushers, red vine, gingerbread cookies. Hells to the ye-ah.

2) Always check in advance to see if there is a Pimps and Hoes theme that you don't know about. We saw a guy in a full length fur coat, and another guy with a fur collar on his coat that was popped. We also saw a girl in white fur gogo boots, a grey skirt, and a silver sequined tank top. Well, it was either a girl or a tranny in training. In either case, we clearly missed the memo on the Pimps and Hoes theme for the art gallery.

3) I'm not cool enough because I didn't buy your multicolored hair bracelets.

4) I'm cooler than you because I didn't buy your ugly, god-forsaken multicolored hair bracelets.

5) Studios sometimes aren't so much a place to sell art as they are a cool high school party that you weren't invited to. More than once we walked into a room and were clearly intruding on some secret cult proceedings because everyone stopped talking.

I had an absolute blast. I've been putting off going for awhile, but I can't imagine anyone I'd rather have gone with than Stip. Also, I bought Frankincense and Myrrh soap, eeek!

Huzzah for awesome friends and First Friday!

Rocket Ride.

"Thought I might get a rocket ride when I was a child but it was a lie that I told myself when I needed something good. 17 had a better dream."



Listening to Counting Crows and feeling a little sorry for myself. The holidays are ever an exercise in delicacy and grace. I can't help but feel a little down as the year comes to a close. I wish I had a list of things that I was unsatisfied with so that I could cross them off one by one and move on about my business. Unfortunately, there isn't a list. There isn't a source. Just an overwhelming and suffocating feeling of not having done as much as I should have. I'm at least a little unsatisfied with almost everything in November. I think it's because I already miss October so much.

"I am not worried, I am not overly concerned." Tonight I will be with my family, and all will be right. Late tonight, I'll be with Leslie and all will be right then too. But eventually I will be alone. Friday I will be alone, will wake up in bed alone with myself and this feeling of dissatisfaction. I want to start a fire, deep inside, in the dark places where electric light doesn't reach. I want a spark, a sizzle, and smoldering sensation of doing something worthwhile. It's as if I'm walking across a bank of snow, sinking with each step, and my legs are fatigued and refusing to go on... I'm feeling a little helpless right about now.



I need a change of scenery, a task, a hobby, something to complete, something to say I finished, a craft, a class, a talk, a book, a friend. I feel stagnant and static. I never wanted to be a beauty queen. I'd rather write a book.





Quickly now, before it's lost, give me a shiny day with sparkling grass and a freezing breath. Give me a long drive and some time to think and cry alone. Give me a friend, give me a good book, give me an experience that I'll never forget. Give me an opportunity that I can't refuse. Give me the chance to create, anything. Anything.

Let fall the flowers from from your hair.

Bold lines credit to Empty by Ray LaMontagne



She lifts her skirt up to her knees, walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing. That child in me lies sheltered under the eaves of country summer and the in the subtle shadow of fire-fly light. I embrace her still with my toes in the mud and a gleam in my eye. I wonder if there's a beaten path to get back to that place where the simple pleasure of grass on your skin is enough to fuel optimism for weeks? Maybe (you) never learned to count your blessings. You choose instead to dwell in your disaster. I see me standing on that countryside hill, knees dirty and scabbed from a will too strong to contain, hair whipping around my face, chased by a wind carrying on it's back the gentle smell of jasmine. (I'd give anything to be 10 again.) I reach back to those summers spent in sun and shade, alternating rest and play, and I take the hand of that little girl so lonely, so confused. I walk down the hill through grass, grown tall and brown and still it's hard somehow to let go of my pain. On past the busted back of that old and rusted Cadillac that sinks into this field, collecting rain. Will I always feel this way? So empty, so estranged?





There's a quiet time between the high noon of 19 and the high, full moon of 23 when things grow dark and decayed, and stand about mildewing in the puddles of tears that once christened your most loved dreams. No one warns us about that time, how desperate and distant that child of 10 can be. No one writes newsletters warning of depression and anxiety and sorrow so deep that years spent at the well can't run it dry. Of these cut-throat busted sunsets, these cold and damp white mornings I have grown weary. And on the dawn of my 26th year, I have a thousand words for you, and not one that would truly illuminate this path for you that I know you're doomed to follow me down. If through my cracked and dusted dime-store lips I spoke these words out loud, would no one hear me? There's a bond in our blood that cannot be defeated, and still I have nothing in my arsenal that will prepare you for what's to come.



I find my rest and ease at night, in the peace of the space between your arms reserved for my heat alone. Lay your blouse across the chair, let fall the flowers from your hair and kiss me with that country mouth, so plain. Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves. To me it sounds like they're applauding us the quiet love we've made. Your skin gives me a strength to pass through walls that once have made me weary. I've traveled up and down the line looking for something that shines out past the grey dimness of these days. I looked my demons in the eyes, laid bare my chest, and said "Do your best, destroy me. You see, I've been to hell and back so many times I must admit you kind of bore me." I've been given a place to retreat to escape the sudden defeat that threatens to crucify the chances that I gave. You are that place



There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die.
Listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.

It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.

Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged?

Cowboys made you uneasy; you're a God-fearin' lesbian.

Over the past few years I have felt my relationship with God grow and take a new and unexpected form. If I make you a promise, will you keep reading? ... I promise that this won't be one of those preachy blogs. Just a collection of what I feel and think, as if spoken to a childhood friend over a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

It pains me the way that my gay and lesbian friends disassociate from God and disconnect from Him as if He's the reason that people are the way they are. I wish that I could pull all of my gay and lesbian friends near one by one and whisper a great and beautiful secret in their ear "The day I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, he accepted me as a lesbian." God is Love. It's the only real and complete truth about any religion or faith that we try to wrap our feeble minds around. Have you seen Dogma? Maybe we got it all wrong when we took a good idea and tried to make a belief system out of it.

It's gotten so that some people push God away so strongly that I'm scared to object, or to speak in His defense. I don't care if my friends share my beliefs, because faith is a very personal thing. I just wish that they didn't have to feel that alienation from God and what he can be in your life. I'm still growing, and my relationship with God is still evolving. But I trust it, and I know that it's something truly beautiful.



To my Gay and Lesbian friends:
I can say without a shadow of a doubt, with faith in my heart, that God loves me as a lesbian because he made me imperfectly. I'm imperfect, and he loves me just the same. Before you're up in arms, I don't mean that I'm imperfect because I'm gay. I mean that I'm imperfect because I'm human. God forgives me for despising people that act out against gays. God forgives me for the hate I let grow in my heart against them. God forgives me for the lies I've told and the hearts I've broken and the wrong I've done. And I don't believe for one second that me being a lesbian is very high on his list of concerns. God is Love. It's true, it's so very very true.

I wish you didn't feel the need to alienate Him to show those who act out against gays that the reason behind their hate means nothing to you. Those who act in hate on behalf of Him are wrong, and we know this to be true because hate and cruelty and bigotry are wrong on the most fundamental level. Please don't shun Him and banish Him from your heart because His name has been tainted on their lips. Draw Him near, draw near to Him. Hold him close in your heart and let Him be the place that you go when you need freedom from the slurs and the hate and the pain that they bring. Because God doesn't hate.

Much Love,
Stormi