The story of Spork.

Shaya said:
Hey Spork. Glad you got to keep your personal stuff.

It occurs to me that a lot of people may be interested in BDSM but just closeted and not know where to look. I maybe fall in that category myself. I wonder if someone might find a clever way to make use of that desire and start a functional business by roping in all these people who currently feel like they don't want to or cannot take that first step to into BDSM.

P.S. have you ever explained what your avatar is before?
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I had not really considered that because there are many websites and books dedicated to that very thing. And in-person communities most places, although the nature, accessibility, and quality of them vary greatly. Fetlife.com is THE place to go, to connect with resources and information and events and so on.

Should you (or anyone else) be on there and want to friend me please send me a PM and I'll give you my fetname. I just don't want to stick it here where it is both permanent and public, even if I don't exactly keep any of this a complete secret...that feels like going a step too far, if that makes sense.

But if I ever reach a point of making art and/or writing books for profit, I am quite certain that BDSM will play a part.

Also, I try to do a lot of outreach pretty much everywhere I go, so that anyone I encounter in person who might benefit from coming into my local scene is not only made aware of how to do that, but offered a friendly contact to connect with their first time in. It can be very intimidating, particularly if you don't know anyone, to go to a dungeon your first time. We have stories of how long each of us sat in our cars in the parking lot, trying to talk ourselves into walking in the door. lol

The avatar...

That is an older picture, I actually had it on my Myspace page back in the day, though I had created an animated banner with it that morphed into the eyes of a wolf, and back, over and over. It is a picture of my own eyes, and my very recognizable glasses. I like how the expression can be taken different ways if you look at it with different thoughts in your mind... By default it looks angry, defensive or hostile. But if you think of it like I am a very nerdy person who just made some incredibly sarcastic or snarky comment, and I am in that moment of seriousness just before everyone realizes it was a joke and we all laugh...

That is more truly the sentiment behind that look.

I don't think I have ever properly explained that in words, but that's the emotive intention from my perspective.
 
Before you explained your avatar to me, my first impression of the eyes was intelligent and piercing. Now that you've explained your intent, I can see those other meanings too.
 
I need to chew some thoughts, but this time they aren't abstract or philosophical, nor maudlin or worrisome or insecure. Just purely logistical.

So my current lease expires 9/24/17. I have to give 60 days notice of intent to move out of my apartment. I can however do month-to-month, although it's very expensive. I would not want to do that for more than, say, one month if necessary.

My bankruptcy SHOULD (optimally) be discharged on or around 9/1/17. I cannot apply with any hope of anything but rejection, until that has happened. Afterwards, my standing as an applicant still won't be optimal, but it will be at least possible, with at least SOME of the agencies around here.

If 9/1 were more of a certainty and less of a best case scenario, then I would be planning definitively to seek a new lease start about 9/15, with an aim to spend 9/15-9/24 in the actual moving and cleaning process.

I am worried however, that, should I give notice around the end of July, and if there are delays in my bankruptcy discharge, then I could be stuck...required to move out of my apartment, unable to secure a new place to live. It feels like I am cutting it very close.

I could extend my lease to late October, to give myself more breathing room. However, this would require throwing away a significant sum on rent for that extra month, possibly as much as $200 more than what I now pay, just because the month-to-month rate is so much higher. They really penalize you for that. And, to complicate things further, Zen plans a trip to Phoenix to see his Dad every October. He wants me to go with him. I have no idea how I would afford this, nor how I would take the time to do it and also manage a move in the same month. Seems...not so viable a plan.

Pushing it out further. November. At this point, I have wasted money going month-to-month for two months, which is really not good. That money is my deposit, my moving money, if I have even managed to scrounge up enough, and furthermore, I might as well renew for another 3 month stretch if I'm doing two months, which would save me some...though there would still be an increase to the tune of probably $50/month. Now we are getting into November or even December, and the options for rental housing narrow quite a lot during the winter. The market doesn't really tend to recover until summer of the following year. Not to mention, my son would be right in the middle of a school year.

But I don't want to delay my move until 2018. I really do not. I want to live with Zen, I want both of us to have better housing with more space, and a better standard of living. I want room for my older son to not have to live on my couch, while he works on his needful goals on the path to independent adulthood. And frankly, I am throwing money away at this apartment now on ever-increasing rent, it is likely that moving will allow me to decrease my housing cost and grow some savings...if I can just get it DONE.

And for pete's sakes I don't remember getting into cohabitation with someone being this hard when I was 18 years old. Of course I have never lived anywhere before, where practically the only viable options to rent a home were to use a property management company. I just don't see rentals by owner here. I drive around and watch, but I never see signs in yards. I never see ads posted in the grocery store. I don't even know if the papers have a classified section anymore. It is all online, and online is dominated by either sketchy scams and fly-by-night rent to own outfits, or...property management companies. Of course the fact that this town is built on a strongly military foundation means that most legit rental homes are owned by soldiers who have left the area, and they've hired someone to tend the place, so that probably contributes.

Right now, I am seeing two options of any significance. The first one is to jump, take the leap, put in notice at the end of July and plan to move in September and hope it works out with my bankruptcy.

The second is to sign on for another 9 months in September and just wait and reevaluate next year, and try to move in June of next year maybe. This option costs more, but it also does let me rebuild my credit for a time.

Any options in between September, and June of next year, just look plain bad.

My gut is telling me that I need to make this happen, in September. That if I continue to delay, the delays will go on forever. I mean, if conditions don't get favorable again until the following summer, who the heck knows what could happen between now and then?

So I just have to hope that the bankruptcy gets handled at the best possible pace.

On the bright side, if no disasters beset me between now and then, I should be able to raise the money for my share of necessary deposits and overlapping rent charges.

It's a lot to hang on chance. But it feels like it's time to roll the dice.
 
Where does Zen live now? Is it something where you could potentially put your stuff in storage and stay there for a month or two, and your kids could go... there or somewhere else? A cheap storage unit, even with an extra moving truck rental, might solve this.
 
icesong said:
Where does Zen live now? Is it something where you could potentially put your stuff in storage and stay there for a month or two, and your kids could go... there or somewhere else? A cheap storage unit, even with an extra moving truck rental, might solve this.
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No. His place is small, and full of his own stuff, which he is expecting he'll have to store quite a bit of already. And there would be no room for the kids, and I won't send them off to live with friends of the family. That was a disaster for my older son with him not graduating high school, and it would be a disaster for my younger son, too.

We both have 2 bedroom homes. His is a townhouse, and it's only slightly larger than my place. It's also in desperate need of a full interior overhaul and remodel, he has lived there a VERY long time (ballpark 20 years or so) and not bothered the owners to do much maintenance. But he gets a great bargain on the rent, so he's stayed. It is a sensible home for a single guy. But I think together, with our resources pooled, we can do better for both of us.

I do think that maybe in August, getting a storage unit might make sense. It helped a lot in facilitating my move out of Old Wolf's house. Pack up non-essentials and stick them in there, so that when the time arrives to do the move, getting out of the old place is expedient, and then the storage can be unpacked over the course of a couple of months or something. With Zen likely needing storage space, we might share a space if it's big enough, and share the cost of it.

If I did things that way, then I could have most stuff out and I would theoretically have until 9/24 to secure a new place and be out of the old one completely.
 
Yesterday's thought chewing was good. I am moving in September. I will put in notice next month, and that is going to happen. It is good to feel sure about what I'm doing.

I ran numbers on my situation...and I feel pretty good about them. If the worst comes to pass, and "Oh no, I can't rent a house that suits my needs because of the bankruptcy" happens, then I will fall back on the sketchier subprime management companies (I edited that, it originally said subprime lenders because usually those words go together, but that's not what I meant! Silly.) and something temporary, a shorter term lease, and then fix the situation next year. Somebody in town will rent something to me. Hopefully it will be the right kind of something, but I'll work that out when I get there.

Mainly I'm in a hurry to get this done, because of the rent increases. I mean, I certainly feel very emotionally driven to try and live with Zen. I love him, and would much prefer to see him even briefly, more often, and I am more than ready for this step, and of course if I'm giving space to my older son for a time, it will be far more comfortable if there is more space to go around. Those factors are all a thing. But I feel more sensible making my life choices based on numbers, rather than feelings, whether of love or comfort, and the numbers don't lie. My rent keeps going up, and it's more than I should be paying for a 2 bedroom apartment, especially if I continue to do it. Time for a change.

Last night was interesting. I had to work on my son's computer for several hours. He came to my place with his desktop tower which "doesn't work" and his laptop, which did. He began his school work for summer school, on his laptop. Then yesterday it stopped working. "Disk failure." Great. I decided to see what is up with the desktop, which I built for him some years back. I had to put some time and aggravation into it, but I did get it fixed and working, so the kiddo could get back to work. He is caught back up now. Yay, Ninja. Then Zen came over and we went for a swim in the apartment complex swimming pool. It was the first time since I've been there (over a year now) that I have even been in the pool. See the amenities sounded SO nice, but I have rarely used them. And my kids aren't allowed to go without me, even though one of the two is 18 and lifeguard certified at one point, unless I get him on the lease with an app fee and credit check and everything. No guests or minors without a "resident" (adult on the lease) present. LAME. I suppose it makes sense, but it's a shame that my boys are stuck in my apartment during the summer while I'm at work, when there is a perfectly good free pool right there.

Of course, last night Ninja was busy doing schoolwork and Q was busy playing video games and neither of them joined us down there anyways.
 
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The article made me chuckle. Thanks.

For others reading this, click the article. After reading the first paragraph, if you don't like it, click the back button. I know you won t click the back button. ;)
 
Ugh, so...I need to go back to my dentist. The same tooth I had a root canal on last year, which my darling dental sadist did not charge me full price for because he said, "In the long term, I don't know if we keep this tooth" is acting up now. It is a dead tooth. It shouldn't feel like anything. But there is a mild pain and pressure feeling under it, and my bite feels misaligned. This morning while flossing (which I now do religiously thanks to my Domly sadistic dentist admonishing me to do as often as humanly possible) I noticed that in addition to these weird uncomfortable feelings, the tooth seems almost to be...I don't know, bulging out like? That's not a good way to put it. Imagine if someone pressed from underneath the spot between that tooth and the one behind it, and the edges of both were protruding downward, teeth looking like they are on a bit of a slant... I suspect there is a pocket of infection or decay or something awful happening in there, and it's pushing things around. It isn't severely painful, but then...the tooth principally involved shouldn't have any nerve left to feel anything. This is not good. And the alarming bit for me is, if there is any decay happening between the teeth despite by best flossing endeavors, I do not want the neighbors of this naughty tooth picking up its bad habits.

I suspect I'll need to have it out, which is what the dentist said in the first place over a year ago. All that trouble for nothing. Well, we tried our best. At least I am not suffering in any sort of agony. That's nice. I've been able to ignore it the last day and a half or so, since I first noticed the discomfort.

Interestingly, my last remaining wisdom tooth is just 2 teeth back from this zombie tooth. Healthy and happy as can be. The dentist said I should have it out, I disagreed. I have always felt like, if a tooth is being nice, let's leave it be. Now I wonder, if we remove the zombie molar, will the one behind, and the wisdom tooth, shift in time forward, or at least allow me some chewing surface...? I feel like that wisdom tooth is like a spare tooth, a backup. And the one fortuitously I may need most. And I've mastered the trick of getting in there with the floss and keeping that little guy clean, so unless it gives me grief one day...I feel pretty glad it's there.

I will call the dentist today. *sigh*

On the...maybe?...bright side?... I have quite a bit of time off saved up, and available for my use, not a crazy amount but some, and I can take a bit of time off work, maybe a whole day if I need it, and even though I might be drugged, I could still work on art at home while I recover. I have neglected my project for about a week or so now, and need to hop back in the saddle and get it done, and get to work on one or two more.

I have an artistic challenge... So the big dragon I did was on stretched canvas. And it caused the fabric surface to ripple and warp underneath it, and once that had occurred there wasn't much I could do to flatten it again. So I have these rippling um...wrinkles?...in the canvas around the dragon. All I could do was act like I did that on purpose for some reason, play the "It's not a bug, it's a feature" card, and carry on. My next piece, I tried using a piece of foam board as a back, cutting a piece of canvas to shape and gluing it to the foam, and curing it under pressure (between flat heavy objects) and it started life nice and two dimensional. Then I sculpted on the 3D relief of the unicorn in goopy paper pulp maché medium, and let it fully dry over the course of about a week. Well, when that stuff dried, it contracted, and it warped my surface, foam board and all, into a bent shape. I forced it back, which cracked the foam board, but since there is canvas glued to it that isn't the end of the world. It is...nearly flat. Cracks formed in the sculpt, but that was ok because I was always going to cover it with paper-strip form maché anyhow. But I am wondering what I need to do, to prevent this issue where the drying sculpt medium I am trying to put on a flat surface, when it dries it bends the surface all out of shape. I think....

AHA. I know what I'll try next time. I will make the sculpt on a loose piece of canvas, then cut it out, and then just glue it to the background after it's dry. Then I can use the paper strip method to unify the parts and seal it all together nice like. That might just work.

See, processing in action. Worked my way through to a solution, very good.

I'll let you guys know how it goes with my next piece. Which might get going under the influence of pain meds, so that will be interesting...

Um, in other news...weekend was good, lovely lazy happy Zen time, mostly spent in bed with him. Party at Voodoo was lovely, for the first time we chose to use a table instead of a cross or bench, so he had better access to certain parts of me at different angles than normal. Rubber bands are evil. And yesterday I had a hypnosis workshop thing and then later watched a movie with Zen. We watched Dr. Strangelove, which I'd never seen, and I happily noted about 4 or 5 little quotes that GWAR had sampled from the film for their song, "America Must Be Destroyed" from the album of the same name. That was the first intense listening to GWAR I ever did, as I had a cassette tape of that, which I played absolutely to death for a long time.

And my poor 15 year old, Q, had a rough time of it yesterday evening. He walked all the way to Taco Bell from our house, which is a good 20-25 minute walk or so, and when he got back he discovered he'd stepped in dog poop and had to clean his shoe...then he found that he'd forgotten to ask for no lettuce on his tacos, so he wouldn't eat them. Just nothing working out for him. I considered hopping in the car and running to Taco Bell and getting him some replacements but by the time he told me what had happened, and Zen and I finished our movie, it was past 10pm and I needed to get to bed. Unfortunately I was not able to get to sleep easily for some darn reason (maybe it was too hot in the room) and if I'd known that would be the case I might have just gone anyways. Oh well. Hindsight and all. I think I will take the boys out to eat tonight, and let Q choose where we go. Poor kid.
 
I am enjoying this thread about the differences between:
"I love you"
"I am in love with you"
and recently also, "I like you."

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88727

My take on this stands at:

"I love you" - Means I think you're great. I'm a fan. I appreciate you, enjoy you, have warm feelings toward you. OR, we have a long history together and a familial bond that I recognize and I feel is important. You're an important person in my life. Once I love someone, they tend to have some place in my heart for good. Even my ex, I will always at least care what happens to him to some extent, and some part of me will always acknowledge the long road we walked together. I can say these words and mean them, for friends, for family, for pets and partners and lovers. I don't have to be in love, nor to LIKE someone, in order to love them.

"I'm in love with you" - Means something far more animal, chemical, hormonal. It's present in the intense and nearly obsessive or addictive feelings I have on occasion felt for a romantic partner (not anywhere near every partner I've had, only very few!) and Zen is the first time I've ever felt like we reciprocated this feeling in both directions. It's the craving for the touch of your partner and their presence and their intimacy. But it is ALSO, the phrase I'd use for how I felt when I was pregnant and had new babies. That intense hormonal and natural thing of being extremely attachey and clingy and protective and nearly obsessive. Mostly I'm thinking this state is hormone-driven. I never felt this for my ex, and he often declares this as a way in which I wronged him, and says that I should have cut him loose early on, as soon as I knew I was not "in love with him." He sustained something like this for me, for all of our 18 years. I always felt guilty that I did not feel the same...but confused, particularly since so many people say that this state is fleeting and shouldn't be what one bases a long term relationship on.

"I like you." - So I made the point that when you don't live with someone, it's much easier to like them. We can deal with our friends, even when they have some pretty difficult personality traits, because we don't have to be around them all the time and we're not invested in all of their business, even if we support them through hardships. The other elements, of loving or being in love, help keep people who live together willing to forgive, compromise, cooperate, and deal with the times that they don't necessarily like one another that much. I don't always like my children, haven't been in love with them since they were little, but I love them, so I do my best to get through rough times where we're not happy with one another. If I did not love them, I would have moved out or kicked them out when conflict arose, perhaps. I have had cohabitation break the liking bond between friends when not enough love was present to heal it. But love with no liking at all is something like an abusive relationship. Returning again and again to a partner due to, say, familial or lustful love, even when they make you very unhappy. So, liking is pretty crucial stuff. I would say it's the stuff that real compatibility between personalities is made of.
 
Got an appointment in a couple hours with my dentist. Framing him as a Dom or a sadist amuses me, he makes odd commentary at his assistant, reminds me honestly of the Worm King, in the nearly sociopathic sort of humor he's got. Anyhow I found it oddly easier to cope with having a root canal if I thought of him thusly, so the idea stuck, though of course I didn't share that notion with anyone in the office.

I may have made an offhand comment about having an "unusual relationship with pain" when I was praised for doing well with the procedure. And at one point when I followed up and I told him I have been much more regular with the flossing, he said (I shit you not), "Good girl" and I nearly lost it with hysterical laughter. I managed not to laugh but could not contain my grin. This will however be the first time I've been back since getting my collar and I am wearing it today, and I confess to a bit of curiosity if anyone will notice or comment.

Knowing people in the dentistry profession, they will probably ask me about it while my mouth is open and two or three hands are reaching in there with dental tools and I couldn't respond if I wanted to. :rolleyes:

Sadistic bastards...
 
OK, so the tooth is cracked inside, and he says he will want it out, but did not have time to do an extraction today and is about to go on vacation. So he is having me come back in 2 weeks to get it out then. He says it should keep, without much trouble, in the meantime. It didn't even really hurt until he started poking around with it anyways, so I imagine it'll be ok.

No comments on the collar. But.

His assistant is Teresa. He says, "Hi, forgive me, I'm having some problems with Teresa lately. Discipline problems. Maybe time for some punishment."

She laughs, a little.

I simply raise an eyebrow at him.

Later, he has her do the X-Ray. He says, "We're going to do an X-Ray. It won't be me doing it. I'll let Teresa abuse you. But I'll be right back."

It's like...he makes these little comments, you know, and I can't really tell what is up with this. Like, the assistant, he typically makes a lot of these comments aimed at her. And she doesn't really play off of them, or make a thing of them, but almost seems slightly uncomfortable, or maybe a bit of "this is what I put up with" sort of mild laugh or brushing off of it. I'm sitting there wondering if the guy has a D/s relationship with his dental assistant, or if he has merely a fantasy about such, or if he is just trying to be funny, or if he's making inside jokes with me, or...WHAT.

Which again, reminds me totally of the Worm King, where I never really knew if I was coming or going with him. He always created tons of questions that always went mostly unanswered, or if he did answer, you never knew if he was joking. I once said to him, "There are times...I feel like you have multiple personalities, like I have seen you in at least three or four very distinct modes of behavior. Even your face changes. I think, too, that one of them maybe wants to kill me." And he replied, "Oh <spork>... They all want to kill you."

I did not know if I should laugh, or be afraid...but it was my feeling all along that he wanted me to be afraid of him, as he was afraid of some of his own darker fantasies and interests, but that in reality he just isn't as frightening as all that. Not really.

Both of these men make odd remarks that seem very inappropriate, and might mean something, or maybe not, and who can tell?? It is one thing to deal with that in an oddball you met on OKC...and quite another to deal with that from your dentist, I tell ya.
 
I find it mildly amusing thinking of your dom dentist saying, "open wide. This won't hurt a bit." ;)
 
Shaya said:
I find it mildly amusing thinking of your dom dentist saying, "open wide. This won't hurt a bit." ;)
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You know...

The attitude I have seen from many Sadists reminds me a bit more of Dustin Hoffman in the movie, "Hook" when he is about to pierce the boy's hear, and he says, "brace yourself, lad...because this...is REALLY going to hurt..."
 
Got home yesterday and I was STARVING. I had not eaten anything of any significance all day. Nothing in the apartment really looked good, or if it did, it was the sort of food I was wanting to leave for my kiddos to eat. And after Q's misadventures with Taco Bell the night before, I did want to take them out. So I suggested Fazoli's and we went there. I usually can't finish a whole plate of food, when I go out to eat, but I was hungry enough to devour everything in front of me last night. When we got back, my tooth was still hurting quite a bit (mostly because of the dentist fiddling with it really) and I took one of my stash of pain pills from last year's root canal, which I hadn't really needed at the time so much. I mean, I seem to maintain a certain small stash, hidden under lock and key, of some kind of heavy duty pain pills from procedures, and I use the older stash first when I get any new ones, and I don't usually need as much as what they prescribe me. The ones I've had lately are Norco, which are acetaminophen and hydrocodone, and if I take so much as one per evening ostensibly to help me sleep while in pain, for more than a couple of nights running, I wind up having really freaky dreams and disturbing nightmares. I don't like that. I get to a point pretty quickly where I only want to take ibuprofen or Tylenol sparingly for these things. I feel like some kind of a junkie with my stash of pills, but it's more like I have a stash for the very opposite reason, I don't TAKE the damn things. But hey, that just means they're there when I need one, right?

Well I was tired of my stupid tooth hurting. I figured if I took one, I could rest, maybe snooze. I tried that. I could not get to sleep. So I got up and did laundry. I didn't feel loopy at all, but my pain was significantly lessened and remains so. Actually the tooth doesn't feel bad at all right now. So that is good.

In other news... I have been thinking about the bankruptcy/vehicle replacement question. My credit score, at least the one I get from my subscription service, is higher now than it was early this year when I got my new van, even though it now has "bankruptcy" splashed all over it. I know that the best lenders might not want to touch me right now, but the terms I'm dealing with at the moment are not that great. My present vehicle...even if it turns out it has no serious problems, is huge and clunky and drives me nuts and uses way too much gas. The extra cargo room of having a minivan no longer seems like it's all that necessary. I mean, once in a while, when I have to move something, it is great...but that's like what, once a year, or twice? Not often. Not enough to be a huge factor in this decision. One can always rent a van or something from like U-haul, if necessary. Because of the bankruptcy I have the opportunity to surrender this vehicle with no strings, just cut it loose, anytime I like. And what I am seeing is that even if I am paid on time with the loan, because I am not reaffirming it, they could repo the van anytime AFTER the discharge and closure of my case. I would much prefer not to walk out of my apartment one day and find my van gone, along with whatever personal effects I had in it at the time. That would suck.

So I am contemplating my options... Zen suggested I do some research and start thinking about what I might want. I have narrowed down my interest range (I think) to a few models I want to get out and test drive sometime soon. Subaru Outback, and Crosstrek, and the Nissan Rogue. I really like the Rogues, but then I also thought that the Juke was an adorable little sporty thing and I test drove one and hated it within the first 30 seconds. So I won't know until I give 'em a try. Mainly I want something a little bigger than a sedan, with the cargo flexibility of a hatchback/SUV, but the better fuel consumption of a smaller vehicle, and not a completely insane price tag. Those three options in model years 2012-2014 seem to fit the bill.

The only question is timing. I COULD do this right now. But...
1. It will be nice to have the big vehicle when we move in September.
2. I want to make very certain that my bankruptcy discharge does indeed go through...although I have no reason to believe it won't--and if it got denied, I honestly don't know what I would do, so I can't even contemplate that possibility. My lawyer foresees no issues though, and hey...that's what I pay the man for. So.

I think the best time to do this will be very shortly after I finish moving, maybe in October.
 
I have a 2013 Mazda 3 and love love love it, and had similar requirements when I was shopping. (And my husband drives a Juke and I hate it, so there's that...)
 
icesong said:
I have a 2013 Mazda 3 and love love love it, and had similar requirements when I was shopping. (And my husband drives a Juke and I hate it, so there's that...)
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I will consider that. Yeah, the Juke...so cute from the outside, but so damn claustrophobic from the inside... I'm too used to driving a minivan. I got into it and I was instantly like, NOPE.
 
Hm. But do they handle alright in the snow? That was one reason I was leaning toward the "small SUV" market. They are all wheel drive. That's nice.

I'll put it in mind to test drive one, though.

Frankly I don't much love driving in snow anyways, and sometimes even take a day off work (which they generally let me do) when the roads are bleh.

So the zombie tooth is bothering me only a little and only sometimes. Like most problem tooth issues, if I think about it and mess with it then it is more uncomfortable. I think I will be glad to have it out. And I decided yesterday that I had enough room in this week's budget for some clothes shopping. My older son came to my apartment with a couple of boxes of clothes, which was pretty much jeans and t-shirts. My air conditioning in my apartment just isn't all that powerful, and it gets hot in there, and the kid had no shorts. So I got him some shorts and tank tops. And I got myself a few things. I'm at a place where I don't really NEED new clothes...but I kind of want some.

What I should do, at some point, is maybe start up an account at a local consignment shop and take some stuff in...I wouldn't mind unloading things I no longer really wear, if I'm bringing on board new things now and again. I am tempted to try to Ebay it, but man, I really have not liked how high the fees are now. Between Ebay and Paypal, they took like 13% out of me.

....

Oh, and I'm listening to a video from the recent Seattle date on the Vans Warped Tour, featuring GWAR's new song from their upcoming new album. It's... Well, I really like the guitar work. I can say that for it. I'll have to wait and see and give it a few dedicated listens in the recorded format to decide if I truly like it or not. It's been very difficult to decide how to feel about my beloved Scumdogs since Dave passed away. I mean, Bishop is doing a fantastic job, I can't fault him for that, he's probably the ONLY person who could have even made a credible attempt. But Dave was...he was the stuff legends are made of, in many ways. He was brilliant, a hell of a writer (of songs and other stuff) and an amazing performer. His stage presence was unreal. I mean, it was the kind of iconic attitude you get with like a Doctor Frank-N-Furter, how can you replace that? And he did the thing of shamelessly getting out there in front of cameras every chance he had, like whoring himself to draw eyes and ears to GWAR, and god he was funny. Everything from interviews for little obscure Youtube channels and magazines, all the way to Springer, Joan Rivers, Fox News show Red Eye, a sitcom on FearNet...a golf promo video for gods sakes... The guy was all over the place. He wrote a memoir and a football column and was constantly very active on social media. Hell he was doing this long before there WAS social media, he had his own website with a guestbook frequented by a core group of fans and he was a regular at a fan site with forums called Bohab Central. Oh, and he was one of the core artists and costume makers. And yeah, he was the singer.

And now, he is gone. No wonder I guess that everybody lost their fucking minds and it felt like a vortex of chaos opened under our feet, for those of us who knew him and cared about him, and even for many who didn't.

So...they are writing new songs now. But they still aren't really filling his shoes in the realms of media and promotion, and if they don't figure that piece out, GWAR won't survive. But these guys are getting older, I don't know how long they really want to even keep trying. Long enough to get all of the old memories and material published for posterity I imagine.

At least the costumes are delightfully scary now, for the most part I love what they've done with 'em. I specifically told Bishop that he needed to be NASTIER and they have really stepped up their game in that regard. Check it out.

Original "Blothar the Barbarian":

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Care Bear pelts? What?

Blothar 2.0, from the fall tour in 2015 I believe...getting better, but udders now? He called this his "bag of dicks"...

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And NOW... Now he is NASTY. Gone is the blue fuzzy fur, and he's channeling a little Oderus in his piggy face features. The udders are even horrible. You can't see it, but there is actually a sort of toothy mouth tucked up in amongst them. That's just...just... Well, it's great.

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So I guess we will see, hopefully the guys can carry on. I hope to see them on a fall tour this year, but I am not a big fan of festivals, so I'm gonna skip Warped Tour.
 
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