um, can i rant a bit?

just a bit?

k.

thanks.

i should probably do this on a dA journal because that's what it relates to but i don't update that journal, so whatever.

in about july, i decided to make a header banner for this very lj: HERE. it is a photomanipulation, i wanted to do something kind of "dark" just for the hell of it. it's a redo of a manipulation i did a year or so ago, and i'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, since i have practically no experience with photomanip and it was just for my own personal use.

apparently, the rest of deviantart loves it to, since i now have 127 favorites on it. i got something like 80 within the first week it was up, or something. i don't remember exactly.

i shouldn't be complaining that i made something popular, i guess. but holy christ.

it's a fucking LJ HEADER.

I DON'T REALLY CARE TOO HARD ABOUT IT.

i put it up on dA because it did take a little effort and i do like how it came out. but this is ridiculous.

there are many other pieces i worked equally hard on; i am far, far more proud of some of my photography and all of my writing than i am of some brushed-over and overused stock image. my writing is ME, it is personal. i would much rather get attention for how i write than how i use photoshop on some photograph someone else took. not to mention, people don't even look at the rest of my shit; they just see the piece on someone else's favorites list, add it to their own, and be on their merry way. which is fine, but.

is that selfish? i mean, i'll admit i haven't been very active on dA. i should be happy to be recognized for something; but that stock has been used a thousand times and plenty of them in the same capacity that i used it in. i'm not proud of it because it's original. because it's not. i'm proud of 'mechanics' because it's rare that i write and to be frank, i really doubt there's too many poems using a newton's cradle as an extended metaphor. i'm proud of 'windows' because it was a fluke shot of my friend's cat that turned out to be totally perfect. i'm proud of 'any kind of truth' because the image's message means a lot to me. i'm proud of everything, even the photomanip, it's just that that one piece isn't all me. it's an arrangement of resources. out of everything that is mine, it is the least me.

so is that selfish? to want to be recognized for something close to my heart, as opposed to something that i am emotionally neutral towards? or am i asking for too much here?

sick of everything. i feel like i'm about to crack into a million pieces. school, band, being constantly put down for caring about something - sick of it. sick of being in a house where the only talk is of dying. sick of not being around the people who really matter as often as i want to be. sick of not having a car, sick of not being able to leave when i want to and need to. sick of not being goddamn good enough for everyone's expectations.

i'm just sick of not living the way i want to. i want it to be this time next year. i want to be in college, out of this stuffy little house. i think as soon as next summer comes, i'm moving in with someone. i don't really care who. maybe i'll grab my own place, even if it is only for a couple months before i leave for school. i sound like some sort of dumb-ass emo kid, but i can't stand this stupid fucking routine. i need to get the hell out. i realized my problem isn't asheville. i realized i love this place - i just hate where i am in it right now. stuck in the same damn stagnant place with its stagnant air and stagnant people. nothing dynamic. wake up. go to school. go to band. hate my life. sleep. sometimes a little variety here and there but it's not enough. hi, i'm helen. and i am a demanding bitch.

more and more i'm wondering what kind of person i am and what kind of person i have yet to turn into. i'm wondering what it is i'm really afraid of in my life. i think i'm afraid of living like my mother did. never really reaching out and grabbing what she wanted. never taking a chance. this is my senior year, and a lot of people i know have been doing shit that is either unbelievably stupid or simply the kind of thing you never expected them to do. it's this feel in the air, like, we all have this chance to dive in with no second thoughts and no time for a breath. scrapping inhibitions, morals, what-have-you, for that chance to say, "yeah, i did that, and it was nice." it was refreshing. it was unberarably stupid. it was purely hedonistic. and it was exactly what i needed.

part of me wishes i could do something like that every day. the rest of me realizes that it would be nothing special if i did. so i suppose i'll always be a little starving for something more.

i'm on my feet,
i'm running.
our time is almost -
our time is almost here.

i love how i can go out for one thing and come back with about 200 dollars worth of shit more than i ever intended.

my mom and i went to go see if we could get my laptop fixed any time in the near damn future so we went to this local guy just down the street. apparently a new screen is going to cost 150 and he'll install it for 35. we held out on that offer for now so right now i'm still on my old CRT monitor hooked up. it's not the most convenient setup but it works. i'm also pretty appreciative of having desk space for my tablet currently, so i guess it's a fair trade. uhh, we also brought in my old XP box, and he said the hard drive was fried. which is contrary to what the guys at geek squad said last year. they said it was the motherboard and the HDD was fine, which led us to getting the laptop in the first place. so my mom's going to have him buy a new harddrive and boot it with windows, which is fine with me because that means i don't have to deal with doing it myself.

so until my computer gets fixed i'm on this big stupid CRT, so we went to best buy to take a look at monitors. of course, since it's tax-free weekend the place was overrun with morons looking for the biggest, shiniest piece of shit they could find. we didn't buy anything there, and we went to office max just across the street........... and instead of a monitor i got an external hard drive.

let me tell you something.

I LOVE THIS THING OMFSJG:lkdshga;sldkgjadgs;hg

i moved ALL of my media shit over to it and i cleared up about 22 gigs of space on my computer, and i have plenty of room for more since it's something like 698 gigs formatted. i love it. i would totally run windows on it and use it as my main drive if i knew how, but i'm technologically retarded and i don't wanna risk screwing my system over like that. still. tempted. i'm mostly just happy because now i don't have to periodically clear out everything all the time. i'm a packrat.

anyway, so that set us back 139 dollars for the drive plus my mom doesn't want me to risk spilling something on it so she bought that one year service shit for 20 dollars.

and tomorrow she wants to look for monitors again....

and she also wants to look at puppies.

puppies. mom. we're fixing two computers, we just got an external HDD, and we need another monitor. and you want a puppy? that eats? and grows up? and eats more?

puppies.

i'm still working on that joker painting. i finally got around to his clothing. i'm going to have to move it into photoshop to fix things like his makeup and to make his clothing shabbier because i'm just shitty at that in oC. his hair is also wayyyyy too green to be the TDK joker so i'm going to paint over it with a yellower shade and also try and work in his brown roots.

speaking of TDK, i saw it again. it was kind of necessary since there are so many plot points that it's not possible to catch them all in the first place. it's even better the second time around because you know what to look for, and you know what you missed, and things make even more sense. the plot is absolutely brilliant, and it's actually there, contrary to what some would have you believe, and it's a fantastic character study. the story is character-driven, and not the other way around, and it just works. the characters aren't forced into the plot like they could have been and that's great.

i really want to torrent it even though i know the best i'd get is cam quality. i can't get over that movie. i've seen it twice in theatres and i'm going to buy it when it comes out, especially the special edition if there is one, but i'm tempted to torrent to just see it one more goddamn time before the dvd comes out a;dlfjkghagkljb;lnh

OH GOD I HAVE MARCHING BAND ON MONDAY

SAVE ME