A haven for creative people living with mental illness. This is the place where you can tell it like it is, not yet another place where you have to pretend to be someone you've been told you should be.
This character's name is Zero Two Darling. She's what came up when I did a search for zeroing in on Pixabay. She's a human klaxo sapien hybrid, and you can read more about her here.
We’re zipping to
the end of this challenge and also to the end of the month. I need to
zero in on not being a slavedriver with myself because it zaps the
zest from activities I have a zeal for.
I’m also sticking
a fork in the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge for April 2024. There will be
another Camp NaNoWriMo in June, and I’ll do that one too because
I’m a masochist.
The days of my youth
are long behind me, but the things that happened then still affect my
life. I suppose this must be true for everybody. While reading
William Shatner’s autobiography, I noticed that he and I have
something in common: difficulty establishing and maintaining
friendships.
Like me, Bill (I
think he’d be all right with me calling him Bill) had a difficult
childhood, always having to defend himself from bullies. Unlike me,
he has been very successful in other areas of his life. He never
seems to have slid into self-loathing as I did. Is this the
difference?
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Image by Jim Cooper on Pixabay
"You've never done anything to aggravate Captain Kirk have you, Space Jockey?"
I stopped writing in
2007 due to fallout from my disastrous first attempt at becoming a
published author. When I started writing again in 2012, I only
intended to write Aliens fan fiction for myself because people suck
and Xenomorphs are wicked cool.
Fan fiction is real
writing. Even the cringeworthy self-insert fics I wrote as a young
teenager and would have to kill you if you discovered them.
Writing fan fiction
saved my life more than once, no joke.
Much of what I write
these days could be classified as Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction.
Back in school, I
wasn’t smart enough to belong with the academic nerd brigade, but I
was too nerdy to belong with the self-proclaimed rebels without a
cause.
I’ve been trying
in vain for decades to find a niche in which to fit, only to learn
time and time again that I don’t fit in with any of them.
I’m an acquired
taste that most people don’t acquire.
Even when people
don’t treat me poorly, I’m aware that they’re just being
polite.
I struggle with the
belief that artistic pursuits are self-serving vanity. I sometimes
find myself thinking I am exaggerating my disabilities to get out of
working a “real job.” However, I always struggled with trying to
keep myself from having a mental breakdown when I worked a “real
job.”
I was never able to
work the sorts of hours that my family approved of. I would become
severely depressed after a couple weeks working day shifts. I usually
opted for jobs with evening and night hours. The types of jobs I
worked were always physically demanding, such as health care.
I’ve been called ugly many more times than I could possibly
count. Admissibly, I am far from a paragon of physical beauty. It is
likely I could aptly be described as looking like the back end of a
bus. However, I feel it is necessary to pose a question. Is someone’s
lack of perceived attractiveness an acceptable reason to belittle and
ridicule that person, turning them into a scapegoat for your own
feelings of inadequacy?
Is having a plain face and a body perceived as being either too
fat or too thin, too short or too tall reason for disdain?
When I was younger
and believed God/the Universe/whatever was on my side despite the
mountain of evidence to the contrary, I reckoned I would one day
magically turn into a confident and clever person with an impressive
and unexpected solution for any problem. There would be aces up my
sleeves along with my arms! I could pull a rabbit out of my hat at
the drop of the hat! I would be some sort of female amalgamation of
Gambit and MacGyver!
That was the
fantasy.
The reality is I’m
a bumbling numpty with a cool tattoo on my left calf.
Image copyright Cara Hartley/Ornery Owl
The photo is mine. I can't fathom why anyone else would want to use it, however I will allow it with proper attribution for neutral or positive purposes such as a tattoo appreciation or a Motörhead fan post. If you want to use it for immature and stupid reasons such as sniveling about how horrible it is for women to have tattoos or making shitty remarks about the weird indentations in my chonky leg, you can go fuck yourself.
As for those people who enjoy feeling smug and superior about their tattoo-free state, isn't it nice that we live in a society where you can choose not to have tattoos while those who want them can have them? I have seven tattoos. They all have personal meaning for me. I hope someday I can afford to get a few more.
If I had to pick a favorite Motörhead song, it would be Orgasmatron. The blunt philosophical takedown of religion, politics, and war delivered by a raspy-voiced, no-bullshit working class champion over a hard-driving melody and precise backbeat is at once brazen and transcendent.
