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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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"I don't need a grid" I say to myself, "I'll just paint it freehand, like Leonardo Da Vinci or Van Gogh or Picasso..." .
I mean, really, why would I need a grid? How tough can it be?
4 hours into it and I'm looking to MOBA for inspiration, or at least some reassurance, there's none.
It's a tricky thing, this capturing a resemblance. I look at the reference photo. Back to my painting. In pose they're somewhat the same. I'm painting a child, 2 years old. And she has an ear (visible), a nose, 2 eyes, a mouth, all the things that my painting has. But my painting isn't her. Not by a long shot. Not even slightly, not even in the dark. And I try and discover what's gone so terribly wrong.
All the major visible organs. Check. Position. Check. Colors? I'll worry about those later.
There was a moment when I was painting her when she looked exactly like her mother. Well, not exactly, but I could see her. From there she became uglier and uglier, until now, when she resembles no one so much as Doug McKenzie (on the right) or an acid-induced Michael Jackson.
So it's back upstairs, into the photoshop to create the grid, copy it to some graph paper (and verify there's a resemblance...) then go downstairs and see where things went sideways.
"I just need practice" I reassure myself, although there's no reassurance standing in front of this monster I've created...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1924
So there will be no work until they're done.
They're not very vocal, just the "thump thump thump" of their headboard against the wall. They should move the bed.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2012
Still spacey, but I've stopped noticing it.
Now it's the taste of things - or lack of taste. Coffee is bitter. Juice, sweet treacle of sugar, barely registers on the palate, I know it's cold, I know the brand, know that I should be grossed out by the sweetness of it, but I can't taste it.
Salty and savory, on the other hand, taste fine. Taste like more in fact.
And the cigarettes, sometimes I don't even know that I'm smoking them. But I notice the little anxieties, the moments of inexplicable panic when I don't know what's wrong (something's wrong...I just can't put my finger on it...), quitting smoking without cigarettes it was easy to ascribe a cause, now that I still can smoke it's harder - there's no reason for these attacks, but they pass and I get back to what I was doing.
Whatever it was I was doing.
What was I doing again?
I need a list. I have a list, it's upstairs, I'll just go upstairs and get it. In a minute. I should pet the cat. Where was I?
I'm almost out of cigarettes. Tomorrow's quit day. Friends tell me to wait, no need for the quit day, I'll stop without it, I'm not sure, don't want the anxiety of being lost in the suburbs with a craving for a smoke, but I'm trying to quit (when I remember..). And so maybe I'll just try and forget that I'm out, it seems to be easy enough, I'm forgetting everything else...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Day 2 of Champix, full strength (week two of the prescription), and I find myself frequently dazed and confused. Yes, arguably I'm probably frequently dazed and confused, only now I'm recognizing it a bit better. I pour drinks and forget them on the counter, leave burners on on the stove, walk around to do a chore or errand and forget what I set out to do before I arrive ...
I reread the instructions. I have to set a quit date. Friday it is, smoking is giving me little to no satisfaction at the moment, it shouldn't be a problem.
And I make lists. Nothing will get done without a list, and so I keep my pad beside me while I read and make my notes. Never have I so needed the crutch. Although I recall now the spaciness of others quitting on the drug and it makes sense. Now I wonder if the side effects will persist, or diminish, the duration of the drug, but I'll see and let you know.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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I'm out of the restaurant and it's time to quit smoking. So I use a friends leftover Champix prescription, enough pills to wean me from the weed, or so I'm assured, and if it's successful I can always get my own.
4 days now, the 1/2 doses morning and night.
Initially I was skeptical, did independent research that seemed to indicate it wasn't so successful. But I never met anyone who didn't have success on it, and those people who failed in the restaurant had the very legitimate excuse of the environment - surrounded 18 hours a day by fellow smokers. And so decided to try it.
Now it's strange, and I'm not yet at the point of quitting, but already I can feel the limited effects smoking is having on my mood. Cigarettes, they're doing less and less for me. They taste different. And I've given up on the afternoon naps, whether this is just acclimatization to civilian life or a side effect of the Champix I can't tell. When I take the pill I - for a few minutes - feel a bit lightheaded, and when I sleep my dreams are strange. They're always strange (dreams, by their nature , are strange, but I mean strange for me...) - shorts, not long dreams but many disconnected shorts, irrelevant, they don't last....
I'm getting more done. There's more energy, slightly, and I'm starting to move through the many lists I've made myself.
I'm hopeful. This might be it, there really might be a magic pill, but perhaps I'm premature....