Wow they are apparently powerful. A couple days ago I had a dream where I was getting fired. I woke up sobbing. I posted about it.

Well get this - today I get a call from my boss that I'm getting...


my days cut. Not altogether fired, but definitely not a good thing.


I'm somewhere between angry and furious and there is a blanket of rage settling over me.

smiling to myself
flying high above the clouds
constantly laughing

walking with the kids
feeling like a family
spirits are combined

hearing your sweet voice
singing notes upon the wind
my sweet summer breeze

Bent beyond Belief
Torrential winds stress branches
Hope that I don't break.

From afar we love
Nothing but some circumstance
Keeping us apart.



Come and rescue me
From the pain within my heart
Want to hold your hand.


Feathers on my skin
From the breath that leaves your lungs
Giggles on my neck.


Smiling like a fool
Every time I hear your voice
Now my cheeks just hurt.

Your smile is so green
Like a watermelon rind
Sweet like honeydew


Oak tree in the wind
My love rustles through your leaves
Tickling the sky

Strawberry scented
Tresses flowing down my back
Patient for your dive

Why do we make love hard on ourselves? Love, the purest emotion, and we manage to cloud it and dirty it and throw it in a hole and drown it. Before we are born we decide how we are going to send love into our lives - and which ways we can learn best from experience. This decision, this pre-birth decision, usually means we'll end up broken hearted or yearning for something we can't touch, or in relationships that don't exactly match the euphoria that is written of in books and acted out in movies.

Why do we do this?? So that when we do find that thing that is in books and movies, we recognize how precious it is and we take it and won't let it go for anything in the world, that's why. Because if it's the untouchable - we suffice to love from afar and dream of the day when it is attainable. Years and lifetimes we'll wait - with our hand on the glass staring through the window. Nevermind the fact that we're all holding a hammer in the other hand. We'll wait because breaking the glass is difficult and painful. Breaking the glass might mean hurting ourselves or even others or God forbid the love that sits beyond that window.

We feel that we aren't worthy of that which we are more than worthy of. We feel that because of the yearning and longing - that the togetherness will ruin the fantasy of perfection. We would rather the heartache and longing than the notion that this dream too, this love will become just reality. That the magic of longing will be replaced by the reality of togetherness. That what was exciting and amazing and yes, scary will devolve into something normal, and quiet and good. We fear wrinkling the silken cloth of love by touching it, and would rather stare at it behind glass, perfect and untouched.

What we don't realize, and don't see is that the silk longs for touch and would rather be ruined with the warmth of love and hands than stay stagnant in an airless chamber. The silk longs to breathe and feel the suns rays regardless of how the light will fade its colors. Safety isn't safe if it drives you crazy.

Trust me. It feels much better to inhale and feel wrinkled and alive.

Lately I've been a painting machine... it's like, I can't stop. The second I'm done with one thing I start another. Last night I finished the underpainting for something I've been working on just to start work and complete another painting. It's been kinda nuts. Well I've been kinda nuts...

here goes...
First there was the Fireplace...


Then there was the tree for my grandmother, which I posted the you tube video of... so I won't post an image

Then there was this crazy thing which was basically serving one purpose only - to cover a telephone jack in my kitchen



Then I got a mermaid tattoo so of course... the mermaid painting followed... (note: the tattoo and painting do NOT resemble one another in any way)



Then came the inspiration for the next piece - Origami... inspired of course by me dropping a stack of origami paper on the floor and looking at the coolness of it.



Then on the way to work I stepped on some Q-Tips that were strewn all over the sidewalk as if someone's box of them had spilled.. and I got the idea for...

Ear



Nose



and Throat



Note: Throat and Nose aren't complete yet, as they also will get some embedded items... kleenex and tongue depressors... however I have to go through a lot of dyeing processes with them and haven't yet.

and finally last night, literally after I finished throat came

Raven on a wire



I think it's a compulsion now. I might need to see a psychiatrist.

Wow! My grandmother is turning 80 years old, and the incredible thing is she looks exactly like she did when she was 50. She really loves gardens and flowers and Puerto Rico. When it came time to decide what to give her as a gift, I decided a painting would be a good idea - a specific painting of a Flamboyan, her favorite tree.

Enjoy...

We have this mantle that's bolted to the wall. There's no fireplace there, just some random wall decor which for the last 3 years has acted as...well a frame for the brick wall behind it. Dave's brilliant idea was for me to paint fire and put it in there. Well... I went to Blick and bought 4 canvas panels that are 20X24. I hadn't measured the space where the painting would go... just figured I'd wing it.

The panels all fit - perfectly.

I'm not done with the painting and the 2 panels that are finished need a couple of minor touch-ups as well. But here for your viewing pleasure is "Fire" - a work in progress... literally.

LiveJournal Buddies:

I'm not one of the people who usually ask for prayers. I've done it before-mainly during Katrina for my friend who was missing... and then found...

And I'm not really asking for them now - prayers... it's more strength and positive thinking that I'd like - if possible. ((I feel rather weird asking))

My brother, who has severe bi-polar disorder and mild schizophrenia is getting on a plane tomorrow to go to Florida. My father, my grandmother, and myself are really nervous about the whole thing. He's not stupid by any means but he's NEVER gotten on a post 9-11 flight. We're afraid that he might say the wrong thing or act the wrong way and God forbid... get arrested.

I can't even imagine him in the TSA line being asked to remove his shoes. Much less pour out his bottle of water or any of the other tasks that annoy us all, yet we have the capacity for. I love my brother and want nothing bad to happen to him on his trip. I wish I could take off work because I'd fly to PR and accompany him if I could, but I can't.

If you can, tomorrow, just think positive for me. I can't think positively about this situation, and I think my negative thoughts will come to fruition without a positive offset. (If that makes sense)

Love you all,
Me

Boy has it been a shitload of time since I last posted to this thing. It pretty much tells you just how busy I've been.

At work they've decided somewhere in the upper-echelons of corporate to automate my job. Well, I guess that isn't fair - they've decided to automate the control room. Therefore they aren't just automating MY job but the jobs of everyone I've worked with for the last 14 years. Ouch. So, now I'm on the hunt for a new gig.

It's not a bad thing to be honest, when a door closes a window opens right? (Unless it's August and then the air-conditioning goes on, but even that has a vent to somewhere! At least I think it does, I know nothing of the air-conditioning/heating business.

While that's been happening some friends of mine and I have started a non-profit theater company. Our goal: mentoring high school students in theater production. Our first production went so well we decided to run with it and continue the project as long as possible. The kids are really pumped about it - and the adults equally so. I, on the other hand, know that it's going to mean a lot of work for me and a few others... and working on a non-profit project while trying to find a new paying job is a bit much. But again - it might be a good thing.

I've been writing a lot on Fangasm.com - reviews, opinions, and recaps. I write there under the name Ashgiel... which is just leighsa backwards. (Really creative on my part huh?)

Well, that's all I can come up with right now. I just walked the dog and somehow got poo on my fingers which I guess I should have taken care of before I started typing. Now there's poo all over my keyboard too. There's something interesting I think about having a keyboard covered in poo. Poetic even.

I've been so busy and sick that I laugh at the thought of shopping. I have literally bought ONE gift. My husband doesn't know what he wants... and I don't know what to get my mother. The rest of the family can kiss my ass to be honest, but those two---- no freakin clue.

Help.

Where's that fat bastard in the red suit when you need him to come down your chimney?
Oh wait, I don't have a chimney. Damn it.

Some time ago, someone told me that I should take my husband to a cock fight. I laughed in their face, knowing my husband, and didn't really think much on the statement til last night. While I didn't take him to a cock fight, I ended up inviting him to attend one and ultimately take part.

I want you to envision a peacock strut. I'd also like you to take note of how many times the word 'cock' has been used, as you'll soon find it's fitting. Picture if you will the movie fight club. Now imagine someone seeing that movie and NOT getting the fact that it's all a metaphor for inner conflict and the fights we have with ourselves constantly within the fragile framework of our minds. Multiply that by multiple shots and multiple beers and quite possibly some other nefarious substances, and you STILL can't picture what was going on.

Now, I'd left the bar to go take care of some girl business which took about an hour and a half. When I left the bar there were 2 normal guys sitting at the bar, smoking cigarettes and drinking beers. I called Dave and told him he should meet the boys at the bar, and the ladies would be back shortly. Now, I wasn't there for the hour that my husband had been alone with the boys. I can't exactly claim to know what was going on at all. I do trust my husband so I'm going to have go with his version of events before I arrived.

I'm going to give you a rundown. These are a set of direct quotes before I arrived actually.
"Are you a scrapper?"
"I don't mean this in any sort of adversarial sense, but I really want to punch you in the face."
"Don't you feel like something is missing in your life?"

And then, the ladies walked in. Now, the first thing my husband said when I walked int the bar was, "apparently I'm supposed to kick his ass." And he pointed my ex-boyfriend. Then there was this way out of left-field dance involving both my ex and my friend's husband constantly trying to engage Dave in a fight. They continued to size him up. My ex continued to say, "Man he's a big guy" and "what a side of beef". They claimed it was all in fun. They claimed it was a way to welcome him into the "family" as it were. I'm not sure though.

"I wanna shank your husband in the liver" is a bit much for some show of brotherhood, no?

Starring: Sharif Atkins

Wow... I've found quite a few people... I've also found quite a few video tapes and dusted off an assload of memories. High School was definitely the best time I can remember having that didn't involve liquor or sex.

I'm now in contact with people older than me and a bunch of people younger than me, and I must say - they are all great!
I think I'm going to stay in contact with them after this whole "Company Reunion" thing blows over... and write a tv show and make a pilot with them...

I mean, I think about it and - I'm a TV Director, my friend Teresa is a producer, our friend Michelle is an editor... there are countless musicians, actors, lighting people, set design and constructors... all we need is a script and a studio... and I think I can handle those things as well. Hell, Andy can write the damn thing. And these are the types of people who will work together just for the sake of the work. (Not that I'm saying if this dream ever happened we wouldn't all get paid...) but... wow I'm excited.

I go to school tomorrow to see a play and shoot some interviews. And see some people I havent seen in 12-14 years.

I've decided to help my fellow Company alumni find other fellow alums for a thing we're doin'. I'll tell ya, findin peeps isn't as easy as I thought. Sure I found out that one that was a complete genius in school is now responsible for some of the most amazing things technically. I found out another one trains people. A couple of them have passed. One of them is an anime junkie - who I think might actually live with his Dad still.

It's the flurry, however, of return emails from the "Mail Delivery Subsystem" that are annoying me.

Why is it that I find the actual people only to find out their email no longer works? I mean I don't use my Hotmail account anymore at all. Effa Hotmail, but still if you're going to list it on a website as your contact info - once it stops being your contact info - you should take the site down.

Otherwise you leave dumbasses like me, getting "mailer daemon" replies at 12:18 at night and being forced to blog about it.

I was eating two meals a day and a bunch of minor snacks. It was doing nothing good for me... because my exercise quotient was not high at all. Sedentary was beginning to be my first, middle, and last names. Yahoo Instant Messenger and the four hundred blogs I post to were basically turning my ass into some sort of planet. Things were orbiting my midsection as it had its own gravitational pull. Not really, but it sure felt that way.

I'm 5' 4" tall. Let me rephrase that for you. I am 5'4'' short. Any small amount of weight over my ideal makes me look kinda roundish. I'm not certain I'm exaggerating here, but probably. At any rate, I'm meant to be a certain weight and anything more than that does not look good on me. I'm not like one of these tall women who can get away with a couple extra inches. I'm only a couple inches tall so adding my height to my girth makes me look like a freaking ball. I think by now you get the picture.

I started this diet that makes me eat literally all day long. I've never been a breakfast person but the doctor basically said it's the only way I am going to lose the 15+ lbs I gained since chilling on the interwebs with my interpeeps doin the interthang. I hate breakfast. I'm not too keen on the foods you have to eat at that hour. I'm REALLY not too keen on eating at that hour at all, especially since breakfast just manages to make me hungry ALL DAY LONG.

Breakfast - Lunch - Snack - Dinner - Dessert - Sleep. That's my new day. Eating constantly it seems like. I'll tell ya how it goes in a couple weeks. The exercise is going to be the more fun part I bet. At least exercise involves technology... iPod - Music - Nike + <--- love the iPod Nikes.

Wish me luck... or at the very least, send me some damn celery.

As a subcontracted employee of the Chicago Bears Football Club, I would like to say - they are ROCKING!

Today they kicked the Buffalo Bills square in the ass. It's a promising view of an endzone spray-painted with the Superbowl logo.
I shouldn't get ahead of myself... but this is great, usually they win in the pre-season, but regular season play is crap, at best. I'm so happy for them.

I know a bunch of them - not all but lots.

So to my friends, Tommie Harris, Alex Brown, Peanut Tillman - you guys ruled.
Coach Smith: You rocked! I can't wait till the next time I get to say "Congrats on the Double-U" in your ear.

The rest of the boys: I bow to your greatness.

Thanks for turning me back into a football fan.

And José, Frank, Phatman, and Joe... sing it with me boys:

Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way to victory;
Bear down, Chicago Bears, put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation with your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears, and let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois, Chicago Bears, bear down.

OnStage (in progress)

Beyond the footlights all I see
a sea of sclera and iris
floating in darkness watching my every move.
Inside my heart - a mess of electrical malfunction
My brain a constant chatter of synaptic misfire
My hands a different temperature
Leaking perspiration - yet cold.
Sounds attempt to emanate from my biological speaker
And my esophagus slowly closes
My screams sound like whispers.
Whispers that can't be heard over
The jackhammer inside my ribcage.

I'm so embarrassed. Last night I got home to a package from onlinebooksdirect.com. The package contained a book for a treasure hunt - a book full of codes and spells and fairies. A book connected to http://www.alchemistdar.com where you have the ability to win 2million dollars. The package addressed to Leighsa, freaked me out as I hadn't ordered anything, nor (in my memory) given anyone my address. Well, turns out...

I spent the better part of an hour freaking out about the receipt of this book. Wondering who sent it, blaming MattThePale, blaming Speaker, blaming everyone but who I should have. I should have been pointing the finger squarely back at my now pink-no magenta-now purple face.

I got someone a birthday gift of a gift certificate to giveanything.com. The person lives in Australia and the store they were going to purchase from wouldn't ship to them. They asked if I wouldn't mind receiving the gift order and then in turn shipping it back to them. Apparently, I'm a nice person and gave them my address and said, "Sure."

Clearly I've smoked too much parsley in my lifetime, and have burned holes in my short term memory. I'm keeping their birthday gift to remind me of this hilarious, yet embarrassing moment in my life. You all now forever have fodder to make fun of me.

And Nightcrawler, Happy Birthday. I'm sure the story you'll be able to tell from this far outweighs the worth of the book.