The November Conspiracy

I've reached a point where I've just stopped wondering where all of my time goes. Because I'd still be wondering what happened to July, not mentioning October.

It's probably where all of my hair-bands go.

Not that I'm complaining that it's November. I love November. I love Autumn, I love food day (It's called Thanksgiving, Stomach, stop trying to type for me.), I love going outside, I love blankets and hot coffee drinks and all of that nonsense.

It's just that I swear to you I went to bed sometime in July and I woke up today with everyone trying to convince me it was already November.  What is this conspiracy?

                    (Common Sense is so done with Brain's shenanigans right now)



Life has been crazy. Life has always been crazy and if I were to place a bet I would say life will always be crazy from this moment on. (But hey, at least I'd be making some money from it). I feel like I've been in a haze of busy since April at least. Work has been a constant and for the last couple of months I've been fighting off the intense inconvenience that is my very own Cave Mode (Complete with 'Anti-social' dragon and everything).  That on top of everything else has made it very difficult to find time to write a blog post, or do anything that wasn't work or watching British murder mysteries for that matter.

But after weeks of fighting it, I have triumphed! I have faced the 'Anti-social' dragon and I have beat it in the face until it became a passive lump, laying in it's own shame. It's still in the middle of my floor though, which hinders a couple of things, but at least (hopefully) it won't cause as much trouble as it has been.

To be fair though, I haven't been completely worthless. I've managed to get some writing done for my comic (which is currently going through some kind of teenage phase and not cooperating with me nearly at all.) and I didn't hide in my room from the responsibilities that are assigned to me. I think that's pretty darn impressive.

Anyway, except a couple of events that will be explained in further detail later, I'm just going to pretend that past couple of months didn't happen, that I really did just go to sleep yesterday in July and everyone is lying about the date for some reason I may never understand.

Something you might have noticed..

Yep, new blog. Sorry about all of the switching about and changing things on you, but I ran into some personal issues with my previous one (My Mind's Lint) and had to change over. Again, sorry.

But onto greater things!

I've recently come across some energy the past couple of days.  It's been a rare thing over the course of the past months, so I'm trying to get a lot of things done while I have it. Don't worry, a blog post is definitely near the top of that list.

I'm still switching around things here, getting used to the new blog, switching posts over (Because I'm selfish and wish to keep them with me despite their older artwork.) and setting up random things. So I apologize for any future mishaps that are just waiting to happen.

Until I can finish a blog post, though, have a picture of the pumpkins Kristin and I carved for Halloween.



Yes, this is mine. If you haven't seen Nightmare Before Christmas then you won't really know what it's from and also you shouldn't be reading this as you CLEARLY need to go watch that film. (Seriously, go. Now.)

And Kristin's! She is super talented with the Pumpkin carving situation.

Elysha's Summer

Oh boy, let's just talk about this summer.

Summer has never been my favorite season.  Give me fall, winter, or early spring any day, but not summer.
There's just something about this season that makes me want to hide in my room and not emerge into the daylight until I can go outside and not hate everything.

It's like hibernation or something.  I should just start hoarding food and air conditioners, I could get away with this right?

So with all of the horrible heat that comes with summer and getting some new responsibilities at work, time hasn't been in abundance.  And when I do get time to myself I usually spend it flopping onto the sofa/bed/floor and watching murder mysteries until I can no longer remember the outside world.  (This is how Elysha deals with the stress of the modern world, everyone. Doesn't it sound healthy?)

Anyway, all of this to say, I apologize for disappearing off the face of the planet over the past few months.

Here are a couple of thing I HAVE managed to get drawn, but don't really have purpose.

(Top three: Tiny Elysha drawn while making Disney World plans with Sara, Elysha-drawn because I can, random picture used for drawing warm up.
Top four: Evil laughing Elysha-drawn to demonstrate what I look like when I write comic plots, Tiny Kristin-drawn because I was bored and had nothing else to do, Tiny Lisa-anne-drawn to follow up tiny Kristina and tiny Sara, and finally Tiny sara- drawn because KRISTIN got one and how come she didn't? Hence the grumpy face.)


And as I am too busy (Read: Lazy) to draw these, you get them in real life form. Welcome to Elysha's summer:

  So, obviously over the course of the summer, since Kristin was studying Tolkien all summer, we had to purchase all of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings.  (We watched these over the course of two days by the way. I've never been so tired)  And at some point we had to pause it so we could get water or something and this little gem is the scene we paused it one.  You're welcome.

  I had mustache cookie cutters and bread that was disgusting and couldn't be eaten.  I feel this requires no further explanation.

     So when we purchased all of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings we OBVIOUSLY needed a magical fort to watch them in.

            And this happened as well.

           Lisa-anne left Daniel and I in the car by ourselves.  Then she took too long.  So we sent her this.

                 Kristin found my hair clips.  So she decided to put them all in my hair.

Sara was being anti-social and wouldn't go swimming with us.  This was unacceptable.

             

                        And this is what I do when I have talked it her into something and then go to kidnap her.

Gnome Chomsky

     So a fair amount of events have occurred this past year and due to lack of time (laziness) I haven't really been able to give them fair justice.

But for the purposes of this post I may want to mention that I moved...again. Completely unexpectedly.   In less than two weeks.  With my car continuously breaking down.  August was stressful.

Anyway. The reason this is important is because where I moved was my sister and her fiance's house.  We'd been talking about it for a little while and due to just a bunch of crap happening all at once it happened much sooner than expected.  But it's been awesome so far, despite the fact that within the first month of my living there Kristin had burst into my room and began singing opera. Twice.  Then I started locking my door and she whined outside of it and called me a 'meanie'.

And yet we are still considered adults...

Sam, for his part, is a ridiculously evil mastermind of ridiculousness. He often comes across as the only sane, adult one of the group, but do not let that fool you.  There's a reason he and Kristin are together.

Sam also likes video games.

Sam loves video games.

Sam would marry video games if he didn't love Kristin so much.

When he's not busy with law school or entertaining Kristin (meaning that I'M having to entertain Kristin) he will sit at his computer and talk to his friends while they kill zombies and such together.

Now, online gaming is nothing new and the theory of it shouldn't come as a shock. But when I was growing up and would watch my older brother play games, he never played online.  So I'm not exactly used to people talking to their computers and such.

So when one evening I'm sitting on the sofa in the living room drawing pictures and I start hearing Sam talk...my first assumption is that he's talking to me.

"You have to bop the clowns on the nose."

After the initial confusion of him saying random things out of nowhere and then apparently not caring about my answer, I realized that he's playing a game and was probably talking to someone online. This was reassuring because it meant that I didn't have to tell Kristin that her fiance had gone insane. That kind of news always put a damper on the relationship.

I had gotten this all mentally sorted, was going to go back to drawing...then he started talking again.

And here's the thing...I had no idea what he was playing because I couldn't see the screen from where I was sitting. So all I had to go on was his part of a conversation that I couldn't hear, about a situation that I couldn't see.

All of this has been to get to the point of this entire post.

Because while a normal person might have just asked what he was playing, I just kept on replying and writing it all down. And with me being such a generous person, I thought I would share.

"At the end a gnome pops up" I'm sorry? What?  What game is this?

"Hey where's the gnome? Yeah, Chomsky." Gnome...Chomsky...well aren't you clever.

"Don't shoot the peanuts.  Yeah we all can."  I feel that this statement is sending mixed signals.

"HEY! Don't shoot the peanut!" YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE.

"CHOOOMMMMSKKYYY!!!! I MISSED YOU CHOMSKY!"                                                                   

"You can't shoot a weapon and keep the gnome.  It's like using a gas can." I do not have any idea what this means...


"Hey, you want a katana? I found one in here." Because it's common knowledge that those just lay about.


"Does someone have to carry him the whole way, or can one of us carry him?" This question makes no sense.


"Oh...a fire grenade...but I have a guitar already..." I don't understand why this is a difficult decision.


"Maybe he self destructed." Wut. Why are things spontaneously combusting?


"Hey, where's the witch? If I run fast enough I might can pop her." So she's a balloon? Or are you calling her fat?

"Shooooot it didn't work." Aaaand now you have a SUPER pissed off witch, don't you?


"Run for it dudes, I'm dead." You're handling this VERY well, Sam.


"You're like a running back with that gnome, man. Just running through these crowds." 


"Hit up that tunnel of love" Excuse me? Hit what?


"It's the clown zombies, their shoes squeak." What form of hell were you sent to, Sam? Why are you in a tunnel of love with clown zombies? Does Kristin know about this?

"Arms and feet inside at all times."  I think you've gone insane.



"It's like metal gear solid back here." ...I'm not sure I heard that correctly...



"Make sure you have Chomsky tight. Hold him tight now." If you lose Chomsky, Sam, I will never forgive you.

I have grown an emotional attachment to Chomsky now, Sam. You better protect that gnome.

"Basically we have to fight off a hoard and then we run through some gates. Usually there's gas cans around here...but I don't see any." What in the world are you using all of these gas cans for, Sam?


"Oh shoot, yeah you got to grab him."  Is that Chomsky? IS HE OKAY?



"Hang on I can give you an adrenaline shot. WAIT. DANG IT!" I think Sam is experiencing some difficulties. 


"Maybe we weren't supposed to go in here? I don't see any way ou- OH FU----" I think that pretty much answers your previous question.



Something I have learned in all of this, Sam, is that you are horrible at giving directions.



"You guys want to call it quits?" NOT UNTIL YOU FIND CHOMSKY AND MAKE SURE HE'S OKAY. YOU GOT THAT? 




He apparently couldn't hear me through his headphones so I just kept replying and posting everything online for other people to enjoy.

This went on for a good amount of time. It wasn't until he stopped playing and Kristin came in to ask why he'd gone insane that he found out what I'd been doing.

I regret nothing.

Month of the Hermit

$^@#$ this past month.

I'm super sorry, guys.  For some reason I was hit with Cave Mode all this past month.  It's a special mode where I want to crawl under my blankets and never talk to anyone again.  And it's horrible because I get nothing done at all.

And Responsibility has had it up to HERE with Brain.

Brain is being completely uncooperative.

It's only when it's denied to you

I have no excuses for my recent silence than the age old one of 'Procrastination'

It's not even that there's been a lack of things to draw about.  Stuck on the side of the Interstate, people moving again, my graceful attempts at the 'flailing my arms wildly as my foot slides in spilled coffee' ballet, resulting in bruised backs and ripped pants, and my cat learning witchcraft and starting to open doors in the middle of the night and running around like a f@$%#$^ maniac because she got inside.

Oh yes, these past few months have indeed been entertaining.

The point is, is that if I had perhaps NOT waited until now to start drawing a blog post I might have actually been able to post one...

But, alas,  I did.  And today when I sat down to be slightly productive I was faced with the cold reality of my most trusted drawing tablet dying in front of me.
(Actually my cat -previously mentioned as demon spawn from Hell- had chewed through the cord for some unknown reason.  Probably because it took my attention away from her. Cats are stupid.)

So while I have ordered another one it won't be here for a few more days, but I didn't want you to think I had abandoned everyone even MORE, so I decided to just post a little update into the first world problems of Elysha.

'Oh no! My tablet is gone! Now I can't draw pictures of koalas peeking from coffee cups! MY LIFE ISN'T WORTH LIVING ANYMORE!!'

My own pitiful self aside, I apologize for my procrastinating self which locks up my productive self in a closet until I am not able to do whatever it was I was procrastinating about and then releases productive self and laughs at her agony.

Here's a koala to distract you.

Every Time

It's funny because I made those faces while I drew those faces of me making those faces as I drew. FACEPTION

I am the best Velociraptor

So, due to events that did in fact happen earlier today, my older sister Kristin texts my younger sister the following:

In my defense, I had not had much coffee and it had all begun innocently with me making angry noises at the refrigerator.  It is not MY fault that these sounded like raptor noises and triggered my brain into thinking I should walk around like a raptor.  My perfectly sound logic aside, Kristin stating that her raptor stance was better than mine was intolerable.  Which led to me clearing that up with Sara by sending her the following:

(Yes, let's just all ignore how Sara lists me as Boofus on her phone, shall we?)

This is how I have spent my day and I regret NOTHING.

Pizza Buffets are where happy thoughts go to die

So I've worked in the food industry about...a little over four years.  And anyone who has worked in the food industry will tell you that four years is both a second and an eternity.

My first job was at a pizza buffet.  And let me state that if anyone tries to tell you that this is a fun job it's because misery loves company and it's also a filthy rotten liar face.

Pizza buffets are horrible.  This is partly because there is an endless supply of food for children to mix up, destroy and decorate the tables with. However, it's mainly because pizza buffets encourage a family atmosphere that isn't at all happy and wholesome, but loud and resentful.  That may sound extremely negative, but it's been my experience that the families that eat at pizza buffets go there so that they don't have to watch their manner-less, demon children while they gossip about other families or glare sullenly in the opposite direction of each other.  This wasn't always the case and I had a few very polite families, but they were not the majority.  And most people seemed to take it on as their meaning in life to make my job as difficult as possible.

                               (These have ALL been said to me. I'm not even kidding right now.)

They probably felt entitled to making everyone as miserable as themselves.

The only thing that could make working at a pizza buffet worse is if it has a game room.  I know this because the one I worked at did.

You take a dollop of children with endless supplies of pizza, sugary drinks and flashing, competition inducing games and add a handful of uncaring parents = you have a recipe for your very own Hell.

Despite all of this, the job wasn't a complete terror. I worked there for about three years and while there is no part of me that wishes to ever relive that experience, I feel that I learned a lot.  Such as a good work ethic, how to deal with stress and what you can learn from your fired co-workers (A.k.a Ten ways not to be.)

But I did my time and after three years of cleaning tables and losing my faith in humanity I applied for my current job as a barista.

You would think that this decision brought much relief and excitement and it did later on.  I am not, however, a person who is comfortable with change.  So this decision initially brought forth a whole ton of panic and a lot of Elysha going:  'Oh God, why did I do this? What am I doing? I know nothing about this! NOTHING! I'm going to die. I am going to die. Why is this happening? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!'

I am not an outgoing person.  It took until I was twelve for my mother to even get me to talk to cashiers, let alone do anything I hadn't done before. I am a creature of habit and while those habits may include insanity I am going to stick with them and those who would deter me be warned of violence.

So yeah, when I quit the job I had been doing for three years to go to a completely different job, I panicked. I panicked through all three interviews and all of the training sessions. I guess it's good that I can function while I'm panicked, but it is not enjoyable.

But I still did it, because I most certainly was not going back to cleaning tables.  This is not a decision I have found myself regretting. I love being a barista.  I get to drink coffee and learn about coffee and talk to other people about coffee.  And while there are times when I dislike it and it gets rather stressful, it always beats a pizza buffet in the face with a hammer of awesome.

For the most part I'm content.  I don't plan on being a barista for the rest of my life, but seeing as how all of my future goals consist of 'I like art. I like writing and art' we'll see how that turns out.

Today we lay to rest

So, I have a new post written. I've sketched all the pictures and everything...

HOWEVER

My computer, who has been brave and loyal through everything it's gone through, has met its untimely end.  I can't say that this was a surprise, but it was most inconvenient.

Thankfully my hard drive is okay so I can recover everything off of it.  (Because if I couldn't we would all be seeing a very inconsolable Elysha let me tell you)

But even though I haven't lost over three years of art, I do not yet have a new computer to transfer it to.  So until I have monies or a new computer rains down from the heavens, I won't be able to draw pictures.
*twitching in the corner, muttering*

Anyway, this is just to let you know why I've been quiet recently. Hopefully I can draw again soon.

In the meantime have an old-ish picture featuring one of the reasons Sara prefers not to be in the car with me

I'm the artist and I'll draw what I want to

For all of these things which I have done, there are none that I regret.

In other words: Because I can

Of Christmas and Nonsense

Is it really the Holiday season already? Really?

I kinda need to start paying more attention to which month it is. Also read: week, day, year. I wrote 2010 on a bank deposit the other day and didn't notice until the clerk responded by giving me a funny look and asked if I needed to try again.

I think somewhere in the utter mess that is my brain's filing system, I had been keeping track.  Not well, but still keeping track enough to know that the day was soon coming when Stomach would once again go crazy, knock Common Sense and Responsibility unconscious and inhale everything in sight. Otherwise known as Thanksgiving.

(Brain gave thanks for the entertainment of Stomach beating Common Sense over the head screaming- "FOOD-DAY! FOOD-DAY! FOOD. DAY!".)

 I knew the day was approaching, but I somehow failed to comprehend that this meant the holiday season would officially start. Not to the full extent in any case.

This is Stomach:

This is Stomach on Thanksgiving:

Yet, I woke up the day after and in the moment of dreadful realization that I would have to drive to work on Black Friday, the fact that Christmas was only a few weeks away hit me.  Like a pillow full of heavy objects that aren't sharp in any way yet still find a way to accidently cut you.

Still, I'm sure Christmas only meant it with enthusiasm and excitement and didn't mean to cause Responsibility any kind of panic. And to be fair, this panic only lasted the five minutes it took to remind myself that shopping for presents wouldn't be that bad. (Necessary lie to retain sanity)  

Giving people presents is my favorite thing in the world.  It's the actual shopping for them that makes Brain curl into a corner and start muttering gibberish. It probably doesn't help that Responsibility keeps poking at her with a stick labelled 'SHOPPING TIME'

I always get like this with shopping.  I would rather eat crackers for a week than have to leave the house to go to the grocery store.  It usually takes being out of coffee supplies or Responsibility going from poking to hitting to make me go.

But despite the initial dread of shopping, I do love Christmas. I'm all about some Christmas.  I love wrapping presents and decorating all the things and basically all of such Christmas nonsense.   I'm also lucky enough to live with people who like it just as much as I do.  Kristin absolutely refuses to listen or watch or do anything Christmas-y until the very day after Thanksgiving. She yells at Christmas commercials that appear in October (Which are kinda slightly ridiculous) and glares at the decorations in stores. But the day after Thanksgiving she is a fellow Christmas monster.

I'm not sure how our house full of kittens will fare with the decorations.  We're going to try to lock them out of the room with the Christmas tree, but they can be very determined if they so wish.  They'd probably think they were helping by shattering ornaments and chewing up everything.  I'm sure they see it as some form of festivity.  They at least seem to love making snow if the casualty rate of the house's toilet paper rolls is anything to go by.

That, or they're just evil, fluffy demon spawns of satan.  

Probably that one.

So yes, once I give Brain some time to adjust I'll turn into a child. Not in the- I really want to drink this entire thing of cream soda-coffee-chocolate milk and run around like a crazy person- way that is my daily life, but in the Christmas Way.

So Happy Holidays, everyone, belated Thanksgiving and all.  If you don't hear from me again- I've either been crushed by a stampeding crowd or I ate too much pumpkin bread and fell into a coma.

Brain Bleach please

This happened. She actually said this. For reals- True story.

Common Sense's Vacation

So one of these days, I'll have an actual blog post for you guys.  Until then, I shall draw Brain, Stomach and Common Sense- I feel no regrets.

I have a love/hate relationship with Responsibility.