A few days ago, my friend Joey Michaels wrote a post about E/N which brought back a flood of memories for those of us who were involved in it back then and then Artfag made a top secret, invite-only Facebook group where all of us old-timers have been catching up and remembering old times.

It’s so funny to think about how little has really changed for me. Out of all 80 of us, or at least the ones who have been participating, I’m the only one who’s really still blogging the same way I did back in 2000. Every single day. I’m still on Camwhores (formerly portal 9), where I’ve been since mid-2001. I still post in the E/N style, I think. On both sites.

I dunno, I just never really thought about it before today, that things never really changed for me. Everyone else is off doing grown up things and talking about “the good ol’ days” and I feel like I’m still pretty much living them. It’s never really occurred to me until today that most of the people reading this post have no idea what the E/N scene was, let alone were they a part of it. People rarely believe me when I tell that that I started blogging, like for real, before the word “blog” even existed.

Back then, camgirls were smart as well as beautiful (not saying they aren’t now, necessarily, some are, but in a totally different way) and most of them were super geeks who coded their own websites by hand. I didn’t though, I used Dreamweaver which was notorious for writing sloppy code so even though I used it, I would have to often go into html mode and fix the code by hand, so I consider it a half & half thing for me.  This is an image of the main page of the last layout (I think) I coded and created by hand. I was so damn proud of it:

If you’ve never read my “About the Site” page and are curious about my site’s history, you should check it out. There’s a link in there to my first Angelfire site even. Remember kids, everything you do on the internet is PERMANENT! What’s so funny to me about my Angelfire site is that my version of a blog sometimes back then was to write on paper, then scan it in and post that. I should do that more often NOW haha We have a new scanner but I don’t know how to use it or I would totally do that. Also I was talking to Blake about this design just last week:

When I lived in Rob’s basement when I was in high school, on one wall I made this design, except in a circle, as a huge mural. I don’t think there are any pics of it but it was pretty cool and I was pretty proud of it. I was telling Blake about it last week but I can’t remember why, except I did say that I should draw it again in my sketchbook so it wouldn’t be lost forever and lo & behold, here it is!

I don’t like poetry. I don’t like reading it and I don’t like writing it, but after Rob and I broke up, I went through a brief poetry phase. Here’s one of them:

Piss Off

Go back to where you were.

Go back into her arms.

No one needs you here,

all you do is harm.

I hoped you were in a ditch somewhere.

I hoped for blood and gore.

I hoped that you had killed yourself and

your little whore.

I wished that you were starving,

And didn’t have a home.

I wanted you to know great pain,

I wanted you to roam.

I prayed that you had been beaten,

I prayed that you were dead.

I thought that you were staying there,

and you’d stop messing with my head.

But now you’re here and I hate you more,

Than I ever thought I would.

I thought that you had finally left,

finally gone for good.

I wished that you would disapear,

Or shrivel up and die.

But you’re still here living happily,

and I still wonder why.

Why couldn’t you have been a good boy,

And slit your fucking throat?

Nothing I would love better than to

watch your dead body bloat.

Can’t win them all I guess,

But I can always hope.

If you ever want to kill yourself,

I have lots of rope.

Hahahahaha!!! Isn’t that hilarious? I also think it’s funny that on my Angelfire site, I had a “PMS page“, which was basically the original version of my “Shit I Hate” page. I’m also still really proud of this troll story I wrote. If you knew the guy it was based on, you would find it hysterically funny too! :oD

More poetry; I wrote this one for Madison when she was first born:

Too funny!

But yeah, it amazes me how much and how little has really changed since then. Especially the latter for me since I feel like I’m still in the same place, doing the same thing as I was 11 or 12 years ago or however long it’s been (I started my first site in 1997, so how long ago was that?).  On the FB group, we were talking about “what if…” and wondering why none of us ever really made it “big” in the blog world and I still don’t have an answer. It kills me that people like Dooce get all this recognition for the same thing myself and several others have been doing better and longer. What makes her so special? What makes her more marketable than us? Why did she get a book deal? I don’t get it. She’s not the only one, I’ve written about the Mormon mommy bloggers before and that whole thing STILL baffles me.

Anyway, the trip down memory lane was a welcome change from the usual. Do you remember the E/N scene? What/who do you miss the most? Spill! I miss being pretty and having nice hair. Oh yeah, I still maintain a small webcam archive, which can be found here.

~*PLEASE DONATE SO I CAN GO TO ART CAMP!*~

PS. Another thing I just remembered is that a few years ago on Facebook, someone referred to me as an “internet celebrity*” and Madison saw it and was like “wtf does that mean?” so I had to show her my site and some of my Camwhores archive and explain the whole shebang to her. She actually thought it was really cool but now that she’s aware of the fact that there’s a relatively big audience, she won’t let me post everything about her anymore, which sucks, but I respect that. Wes knows about everything but my activity on Camwhores and he thinks it’s the coolest thing ever and constantly tell me what I should tell you guys about. “Tell them I did this!” he says all the time, like when I’m filing him or taking his picture. A total ham.

Okay, nurse Cheryl (ugh) is going to be here in 2 hours. I’d better get a bit more sleep.

(* It’s easy to be an “internet celebrity” when there are only 50 people on the whole entire internet haha)

Edit: Apparently Steph formerly of Delightz.net made the FB group, not Artfag and Steph wrote a really nice post about it which you can find here.

Edit #2: Here’s Artfag’s post about the whole thing.

Sunday morning. Only Wes and I are awake at the time I’ve started this post. He’s playing his new video game (Bolt, purchased with a gift certificate from the Playstation Store), I’m listening to a new playlist and talking to Korpsy on Twitter about miserable movies. Yesterday Madison and I watched The Notebook, which is the second most miserable movie in the history of the world, and the little shit didn’t even crack a frown at the end, meanwhile I was a snotty, sobbing, toilet paper clenching piece of shit. I swear that child has no soul. (The first most miserable movie on the face of planet Earth is Life Is Beautiful, in case you were wondering.)

Last night was pretty miserable. I know I don’t really post about Blake very often, but I’m really worried about him. When I woke up from the nightmare of pancreatitis in Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, I woke up to the love of my life being a changed man and I don’t like this change. He can’t help it, I know, but he’s not well and I want more than anything for him to be better. He needs to talk to someone about what happened this summer and soon, I think, before this change in him, this sadness, becomes permanent. There’s just no joy in his life anymore, he doesn’t laugh as easily as he used to, he mopes, all he does is work to avoid everything else…he just goes through the motions of living, he doesn’t actually do more than exist. And that worries me a great deal. Last night we just held each other and cried. For hours. Things are not okay. Not everything is getting better.

………….

For the last couple of days I’ve been playing with an idea that I want to run by you guys to see what you think. I think I want to put a 24/7 spycam in my office, overlooking my desk and part of the couch. I say it would be 24/7, but really we would probably turn it off sometimes, just not often. Really, the only time it would go off is if there was any sexy/naked private time going on, which I know ruins half the fun, but I don’t do sex on cam, never have, and there are legalities in place that say a cam like this couldn’t be sexually explicit if children were to also appear on it from time to time.

What you would see, on any given day, would be me sitting at my desk making art and probably watching a movie, possibly with someone (likely Madison or Blake), watching TV with me on the couch. It would not be riveting entertainment and it would not be streaming cam because that would be extremely cost prohibitive. It would be a simple, old school, 30 second refresh cam that would be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, give or take.  We could possibly chat live on Twitter.

Now, you might be asking yourself why on Earth I would want to do this so here are my reasons:

1. I am creatively blocked in a seriously painful way. I avoid my office like the plague and when I’m in there all I do is watch movies and accomplish nothing. Maybe with an audience, I’d be more productive.

2. Maybe with an audience I’d actually make an effort not to be a scuzzy bitch. Don’t get me wrong, if this happens you will most likely see me in yoga pants and t-shirts 95% of the time, probably with little or no makeup, probably with my hair in a ponytail. I’m not aiming to look beautiful here, I couldn’t care less about that at this point, I mean making an effort to have clean hair. Changing my clothes more than once a week. That kind of stuff.

3. Maybe this will attract more people to my site and more people means more people seeing my art and maybe buying some of it. Also, I think from a marketing perspective that maybe some people might be more likely to buy a piece if they see the process by which it was created. Street artists have been working on this principle for, well, ever.

4. I think it could be fun to chat with people while they were watching me (and whoever else was in the room), live.

Now, do I think anyone will actually watch? I highly doubt it. I think the ship for spycams, unless they’re maybe nature cams, has sailed. However, I know a few friends would watch sometimes and that it would enhance our spontaneous Twitter parties and that could be really really fun. Really, the cam is going to be pretty boring otherwise.

The only drawback I can see is that the whole world will find out my big deep dark secret, the thing only my family and a few really close friends know about, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Really, the secret itself probably isn’t a big deal at all, I doubt people would care that much, but it is sort of strange and it will require an entry on the webcam FAQ I’ll have to write up to nip the whole thing in the bud.

So what do you guys think? Would you watch? Would you interact with me live on Twitter? Do you have any interest in this whatsoever? Do you see any drawbacks to this that I may be missing? (All family members have “signed off” on this, Madison even thinks it’s a good idea, Wes doesn’t care, Blake said he’d turn the cam off sometimes.) Oh and there wouldn’t be archives because archives take up server space and I’d really like to save server space for nicer pictures that I take with my camera. I would like to have something below the cam though, that said something like “3 people are viewing this cam right now”, but worded better. I have no idea how you would make it do that. Do you? I know how to make a 30 second refresh page (in Dreamweaver), so I’m good there, but I have no idea how to make a counter like that.

Anyway, just a little idea I’m thinking about. To make it happen, I would need the USB cable on my wishlist and another cam. Ideally I would use the cam I have now for the spycam and use the one on my wishlist for Camwhores, but if anyone has an extra *decent* cam kicking around that they would want to send me for this, I wouldn’t object. Blake says that as long as this thing doesn’t cost him any money, he’s totally fine with it, so this has to happen for free. (We have a little spare computer to use for this – at least temporarily, it’s technically spoken for.)

Oh but another thing about the spycam? If it bothers me, I’m taking it down. If it’s just eating up bandwidth and no one’s watching, I’m taking it down. If a family member objects to it being there, I’m taking it down. This may just be a temporary thing while I’m in this funk, I dunno. But I think it’s okay to try.

Last week Blake and I went on a date. Keith, my mom’s ex-boyfriend, sent us a $50 gift certificate for Swiss Chalet and my mom gave both Blake and I gift certificates for EB Games and at the beach they’re literally right next to each other, so we went and had perogies, cheesy garlic bread, ribs, a chicken type of thing on flatbread, a strawberry sundae and a piece of apple pie – all for 4 bucks and change! Then we went next door and bought Skyrim.

I was so stoked to get Skyrim. I’d built it up in my head as this awesome fantastic thing but the problem was, my computer wasn’t good enough to play it so we had to get it for Playstation. #FirstWorldProblem, I know, but the thing is, I really really hate consoles. I can’t stand those little joystick things you use with your thumb to move, it just seems completely unnatural to me. I tried really hard to play Skyrim on PS3, I really did, but in the end I just got frustrated and gave up. Also the game seems way too big. Like, I played for about 2 hours and barely got past character creation.

The other thing is that these days I’m having a really hard time justifying the playing of games when I should be doing things that’ll make us money instead. Or at least things that are semi-productive. I canceled my WoW subscription because it was just stupid to keep paying for something I only played maybe once every 2 weeks and even then, I was just dicking around, farming for whelps and sprite darters anyway; I wasn’t even leveling. My subscription runs out on February 6th so I only had a month left to play it anyway because I was paying for it with Xmas money, so no big deal. I saved us 15 whole dollars by canceling a month early. *shrug*

I don’t know why I’m so unmotivated. Depression? S.A.D.? Our sketchbooks for The Sketchbook Project have to be in the mail in 16 days, I have one page to finish (I’m not finishing my whole book) and I can’t bring myself to touch it. Dunno why. Argent’s painting has been sitting on my desk, about 65% finished, but I can’t seem to push through and get it done. I have a million ideas for paintings, I’m not at a loss for those, I just have zero desire or motivation to actually make them happen. I have all the materials (although I’m running dangerously low on canvases). I have the pictures in my mind. What the fuck is wrong with me? How can I call myself an artist when I’m not only NOT making art but not selling any either? Like tits on a bull, I tell ya! Squam cannot happen soon enough!

Speaking of Squam, my mom and I damn near had heart failure yesterday when they announced on Facebook and Twitter that the spring session was full/closed already. My mom commented on the post on Facebook and after a few grueling hours, they commented back that there was still plenty of room for the fall, so we could breathe easy. *whew* We don’t think our envelopes have even left the country yet, so hopefully they get there in time!

Okay I can’t think of anything else to write so I think that’s it for now. Blake awake and making coffee so maybe I’ll get him to make me a tea too, which I’ll take into my office where the most productive thing I’ll do is stare a hole into my cutting mat. Oy.

Edit: Blake scanned my colouring contest entry. The scan kinda sucks though. The ornaments on the tree were silver and I guess the scanner’s light really washed out a lot of the colour for some reason. Like, in the original, Santa’s cheeks and nose are rosy and the package at the bottom is actually purple and lavender but it looks white and washed out. Oh well. Here it is.

I have an ingrown toenail that is so pusy and nasty and painful that I just want to chop my toe off and be done with it. It’s my own fault, when I cut my toenails about a week ago I cut too deep by accident and knew it was going to turn ingrown. It fucking hurts.

I also didn’t have dinner last night because I knew if I did, I’d throw up. My “mind over matter” dealie isn’t working so well these days. I *am* almost 6 days barf-free but over the past 2 days I came pretty close and I don’t know if I can keep this up. I guess my mental powers just ain’t what they used to be. Then again, if I don’t believe in those powers, they won’t work, so I should probably be a little more positive about it.

So none of you probably noticed because you all saw the post earlier in the day, but I’ve removed yesterday’s post entitled “Sweet Child o’ Mine” because Madison got mad at me for posting her note. She wasn’t mad that I showed the whole world, she was mad that it was an image that people could save and potentially print out and bring to school to tease her with. Her friends don’t really come here but she was afraid of that scenario. She said that if I could figure out a way to leave the post up but make it so people couldn’t save the pics, I could leave it up, but as you all know, that’s not possible, which is a shame because I think that was a good post. I saved it as a PDF so I could print it out once we have black ink again, though, so it’s not exactly lost forever, it’s just not public anymore.

Anyway, total lapse in parenting judgement. I’ve apologized and promised that I wouldn’t post publicly about her sexuality again, especially in a savable format. We’re good.

I wish I could post publicly about how everything went down with her last night because I think it was very interesting but since I’m banned from speaking of her sexuality I can’t really go into details. I understand her reasons for being upset, and again, it had very little to do with you guys and more to do with people from her school, and I respect them. If she were an adult, I probably wouldn’t because don’t tell me shit if you don’t want it on the internet (unless you specifically say “don’t post this”, which I do respect, or unless it’s really obvious that it shouldn’t be public) but she’s a kid and has the right to grow up with a little privacy. Note that I said “a little”. She is unfortunately my daughter and I put everything on the internet that happens in my life from the mundane to extraordinary and sshe’s a part of my life so there’s going to be some cross-over. I’m not just going to write around her.

I explained this to her and she seemed fine with it. It was mostly the sexuality thing and who she likes (which I know I didn’t mention but I do have a video teasing her about someone we thought she was crushing on last spring that she hated but I didn’t know until last night because she didn’t tell me) because those things can come back to her at school if it falls into the wrong hands. And like I said yesterday, she’s already being teased at school, to a much higher degree than she let on before, and it breaks my heart so I won’t do anything to knowingly contribute to it.

So that’s what happened to the post, more or less.

Before I apologized, she was really mean to me and made me cry, which was a bad move on my part. Now that she knows she has that power, she’s going to use it as she gets deeper into the teen years and the shitty part is, I can’t control myself. I can’t not cry when someone’s being mean to me. I’m an extremely sensitive person and I cry a lot. I cry if the store’s out of ketchup chips. I cry if someone shows me a video on how Chicken McNuggets are made. I cry when celebrities die. I cry when Blake yells. I cry when Wes tells me about when he saw me at St. Mike’s and I was “sleeping”. I cry when “Creep” by Radiohead comes on my iTunes.  I cry for really stupid reasons, especially when I think people are mad at me or they’re being mean to me. Blake’s like, “it’s only going to get worse as she gets older” and I just cried some more because Madison’s never been mean to me before. She’s never gotten mad at me before. She fights with Blake all the time and gets made at him and that’s just their dynamic, they butt heads and scream at each other for a while, then Madison goes to her room and Blake goes to his desk and a couple of hours later Madison comes out and pretty much acts like nothing even happened, which Blake doesn’t let her get away with, they discuss whatever it was calmly at that point, but it always turns out okay.

Yesterday Madison made me cry, twice, and didn’t even apologize for it after everything was fine and we were back to joking around and being normal.  She was indignant, she was like “good” while I was crying, even though she didn’t say that. That really bothers me.

It getting worse will absolutely destroy me and I’ve been crying all morning just thinking about it. :o( Okay I’ve only been up for an hour, but I hit the ground weeping. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through her teens if this is how it’s going to be. She’s just literally, in the 13 years she’s been alive, has never gotten made at me before, she’s never lashed out at me, she’s never said anything mean. That’s not how we are. Or that’s not how we were.

Don’t get me wrong, even after she saw I’d posted the note and before I apologized, she was still telling me all about school and the kids in school and who she liked and was acting totally normal. She took the opportunity to be mad at me and ran with it to see what it tasted like and I think it tasted good. She’s been testing the waters with me a little bit the last few weeks, like saying “no” if I ask her to bring me a bottle of water from the kitchen or to recycle my old ones or to grab me an apple while she’s in there or whatever. She plays it off like she’s joking but she’s kinda started taking it too far and I can’t really explain in text how she’s testing the waters, it just feels like she is. Blake thinks the same thing.

Other than that, we’re totally fine. Blake tweeted this weekend, “I think that Madison and @SunnyCrittenden sitting around shooting the shit is just about the cutest thing ever.” and he mentioned somewhere else that it was “heartwarming”. I don’t/didn’t really understand what he meant because Madison and I were just being normal, this is how we are after school every single day, but I guess he doesn’t see that because he’s at work. Madison and I have talked after school about everything under the sun since she started school, pretty much, so it’s totally normal for us, but again, he just doesn’t see it. I don’t know what was different this weekend, but something was and he noticed and he mentioned it. He also said that it “warmed his heart” that we went into my office and watched The Muppet Movie together while I made art because, to him, Madison and I don’t do that together. But the thing is, after school we do, we’ve watched many an Oprah episode after school together and now on Thursdays we watch Extreme Couponing together. (That show is AWESOME.) Since I got sick, I don’t go in my office that often so we don’t watch as much TV as we used to, but obviously we still do it because we did it on Sunday and last Thursday with Extreme Couponing. In fact she stayed home from school that day to help me deal with a new nurse because I just couldn’t deal with her by myself (and rightly so, she was pretty gross and I hated her touching me :o(). Today after school, Madison is going to the pharmacy to pick up the drugs for me that Blake forgot to get on Sunday because he worked all weekend. She’s a GOOD KID, she just has this streak of malice now that I don’t know how to deal with.

And it bugs the hell out of me that she doesn’t believe me that she’s a good kid when I tell her she is. Maybe I should write her a note. I mean, she helps out around the house a LOT and for no allowance because we can’t afford allowance anymore, she runs errands, she’s constantly asking me if I need anything and both kids understand that walking is difficult for me, so they both grab me water from the fridge and stuff like that and they seem happy to do it. Sometimes (not often) I say in the living room where everyone is, as a joke, “the next person who gets me an apple gets a kiss!” and all three of them will literally fight over who’s going to do it, like they all run to the kitchen to get the apple. The ONLY thing I know for certain in this life is that my family REALLY loves me. Like, to an abnormal degree I think.

So then how could she be so mean to me? I don’t understand. Blake tried explaining it to me as there being reactions that come from the (logical) brain and reactions that comes from the (illogical) heart but I still don’t get it. I could never be that mean to her. I’m the one always sticking up for her, I’m the one always in her corner.

I guess all there is to do is to try and grow a thicker skin. Blake says I need to try as hard as I can next time not to react when she tries to hurt me and he guarantees that there will be a “next time”. I’m not so sure about that, but he’s probably right about the thicker skin thing, just in case. I just don’t think I’m capable of it.

Enough about that.

Last night I watched a movie called “The Switch”, which starred Jennifer Anniston, who I think is SO pretty and Jason Bateman who I think is a dork. Juliette Lewis and Jeff Goldblum were also in it and Juliette was really great. Jeff, not so much. Anyway, it’s about an artificial insemination gone awry and it’s a romantic comedy, which I’m a sucker for, and I expected it to be really awful as most rom-coms are but it was actually pretty decent and do you wanna know why? It’s because it was based on the short story “Baster” by JEFFREY EUGENIDES (!!!!!!) who is probably my favourite author in the whole wide world. He wrote Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides and a new book that I forget the name of but Blake’s getting it for me for Xmas. Something about a marriage or a divorce or something, I honestly didn’t read the jacket, I just saw the name and basically screamed in the middle of Chapters because I love him so much.

Right now I’m half-assedly reading Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs which is kinda cool because of its gimmick (the story is written around strange photos that were supposedly “found”, but I’m not so sure – the photos are interspersed throughout the book) but the writing is kinda “meh”. The story is kinda “meh” too. And actually now that I think about it, the writing sounds like I’m reading a blog, which I don’t really mind but I read a lot of blogs and I want more from a book. Apparently they’re making this book into a movie and I have no idea how that’s going to work.

Speaking of movies, The Help comes out next week on DVD and I have to have it. If anyone was going to get me anything for Xmas, that’s the thing. It’s on my wishlist. Just sayin’…(I hate that term and I can’t believe I just used it, but it fit…)

Here are scenes from my bed from yesterday:

Wes gave me a bat ring for Halloween. It’s one of my prized possessions. :o)

My empty Tylenol #3 bottle.
I always keep them so I know when I can refill the prescription because I only get 100 pills every 30 days so I don’t become an addict (probably too late).

Wes’ picture from the dentist last year.
His hair IS tinged pink in this pic, it’s not  a trick of the light.
I just realized that it’s weird that its for the DENTIST and he’s not showing his teeth.
They probably wanted him to, but he probably politely declined.
That’s just how he is.

This is my extra special snowflake mug.
Blake got me a set of 4 from Caribou Coffee when he was working there like, 10- years ago.
This is the only survivor. :o/
It’s getting old and I need a new one but I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement.
It’s stained on the inside and the inside also has a whole bunch of fine cracks.

I’ll be very upset if anyone breaks it.

Yesterday Blake called me from Shopper’s Drug Mart and told me that Isopure Plus (my protein drink that I need so I don’t die of malnutrition) was on sale for $3.50 off, which is a very big deal because the stuff’s $15 + tax for 6 bottles which is very expensive for us and he wanted to know if I thought he should get 2. I said yes. I wish we had more money so we could get more than 2 because that’s a really good deal and we should probably stock up. :o/ It’s NOT a good deal if we have to put it on Visa and pay interest on it, so that’s why we only got 2.

Today is a grey, rainy, depressing day. I really really hate fall, especially right now when we’re in the tail end of it; when the leaves are all off the trees and soggy brown muck on the ground and it’s cold enough to see your breath but there’s no snow. I love rain when everything’s green, but when everything’s brown, it just depresses me. Also, I just don’t get outside enough. I want to be outside, I just don’t know what to do out there.

Did you know that a serving of cashews (1/4 cup, which isn’t a lot) has 9g of protein? Learn something new every day. The chicken bowl steamery microwave thing I’m going to have for lunch is like, 18g of protein. My mom found an online protein calculator and she says I need 44g of protein per day. I’ve been doing some research of my own and I read that if a person is recovering from a surgery or an accident, they should actually DOUBLE their protein intake because their bodies are working extra hard to heal themselves.

My wound is almost healed and while my guts are swollen and unhappy, I can’t exactly heal them, so I say I should split the difference and that I should aim for 66g. There’s no way I can eat that much in a day without gaining a ton of weight and there’s also the puking thing to consider, but I can come close with the Isopure Plus (18g of protein) every day. I got Blake and Madison to try a little bit of the Alpine Punch flavour last week and Madison said it tasted like medicine and Blake just said he thought it was pretty good. I agree. The texture is a little weird and takes some getting used to (it’s more dense than water or juice) but after that it’s actually pretty good. Blake got me grape this time and everything I’ve read says that that one’s the best flavour so I guess I’ll see later tonight.

Even though Isopure Plus is designed to be easy on tummies, I find that if I drink it too quickly, I feel really really sick, so I have to drink it in little sips across a span of an hour or more. If it gets warm, I have to put it in the freezer to cool it back down, because it’s pretty gross when it’s room temperature.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with the stuff.  I just wish it wasn’t so goddamn expensive.

Okay I think it’s time to go into my office where I can’t see the grey day, watch some bad movies OnDemand, eat my chicken bowl steamer thing and then work on this sketchbook. I got the sketchbook for the Limited Edition Sketchbook Project last week so the pressure’s on! My theme is “the last word ever spoken”. Hmmmm.

HELLO NEW PEOPLE!
WELCOME TO SUNNYLAND!
~*hands you a lollipop*~

Today was metabolic clinic day and I’ve lost 2.5 lbs and an inch on my waist. That’s 5 lbs and 3 inches lost in 2 weeks because the Loxapine I’m on to help me sleep (that’s an anti-psychotic) is giving me a total loss of appetite, but I see that as a good thing because I feel like I’m eating the way I did pre-medication. Before becoming medicated I only ate one meal and one snack a day and that seems to be how I’m eating now, with obvious results.

Today during metabolic clinic, Sherry told me and the whole clinic that she’d been reading my blog and that she found it uplifting and inspirational. I’ve heard that before, via e-mail, but never in person and it was a really surreal moment because she was so sincere about it. That made Marilyn ask for the URL to my blog, so I gave her one of my cards, but warned her, and the whole clinic, that if you come here, you’re probably going to see me naked. Marilyn said “that’s okay, we’re all girls!” which made me laugh.

And the reason they may see me naked is because I changed the Camwhores ads on my sex pages to see if I couldn’t snag any new customers from Steak & Blowjob Day (I didn’t) and I figured if I were going to put myself out there, naked to the world, those were the pages to do it.

Something that’s interesting to me about my involvement with Camwhores is that because I have those sex pages on my site and because I have a link to Camwhores in 5 places on my site, no one will link me. Other camgirls won’t link me because I’m not a pay site or even a porn site and the mixed media artists/women bloggers I know won’t link to me because of all the sex on my site. So I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place in regards to linkage. Not that I necessarily care whether or not people link me, very few ever have so it’s not like this is a sudden thing, I just find it interesting how the two worlds don’t mix at all and how I’m kinda stuck in the middle.

Speaking of Camwhores, here’s me today. I really need to invest in better lighting in this room, I look much cuter in person!

I just got the best text message from one of my co-workers! I can’t tell you what it said, but let’s just say that I had a really good idea for our admin side of things and he implemented it today and IT IS GOING TO MAKE LIFE SO MUCH EASIER AND CUSTOMERS SO MUCH HAPPIER! I am STOKED! Good ideas. I haz them. Just sayin’.

Soon my mom, John and Chris are going to be here to deliver Wes’ new bunk beds. The top bunk is a single bed and the bottom bunk is a futon. It’s going to be a tight fit in his little room, but we’ll make it work. He’s pretty excited about them.

And can I just mention that it’s 6pm and still way daylight out? That makes me a super happy camper. Winter’s almost gone! I looked the other day and my snowdrops aren’t out yet, or crocuses, but the daffodils are coming up nicely and should be out within about 10 days I think. And that robin is still hanging around our yard, so spring has definitely sprung in Sunnyland!

All I’ve really been doing lately is working on my two paintings (the mermaid, whose background I had to change because her pink tail turned orange when I crackled her, oops) and a pink fairy, whose background is what the mermaid’s originally was. Besides that, I’ve been steadily working on my first novel, which is about 40,000 words so far. Yes, it is “Cammity Jane” for those who were around for that and I’ve got to say that it’s coming along quite nicely. My friend Robert is editing it, my friend Charlie is critiquing it (I have to get him the new chapters still, but he’s in Mexico right now) and my friend Fuzz Decay said she’s going to lay it out nicely for me once I get to the publishing stage. I don’t know what I’m going to call it (“Cammity Jane” is just a working title, she was originally going to be a camgirl but I changed that) or what the cover’s going to look like yet but Blake says to just write the damn thing and to worry about that stuff later, so that’s what I’ve been doing. As I mentioned before, I hope to have it on Amazon by the kids’ summer holidays, but again, I don’t know if that’s realistic or not.

And that’s all that’s really been going on around here. I’d better finish this up and say goodbye because my mom and co. are going to be here any minute and I don’t want to be writing a blog post when they’re here. I hope you all had a lovely Tuesday and I’ll probably write more tomorrow.

In the meantime, have you voted for Ann Arbor’s Teen Centre Inc (Neutral Zone) in the Bank of Ann Arbor’s Sweet 15 contest yet? If not, then you should! It only takes a few clicks and it’s for charity!

VOTE HERE!

Thank you in advance! Every vote counts!

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Beliefs & Philosophies
From:    ”Mike” <blah blah blah@yahoo.com>
Date:    Mon, March 14, 2011 5:56 pm
To:      Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com
————————————————————————–

Hi Sunny,

My hat is off to you on your beliefs & philosophies. Why……well let’s just say it’s like when you eat a good home cooked meal……ya know it’s going to be easy to digest. No Tums needed :-)

Many belief systems are hard for the brain to digest because it revolves around a belief in some God figure. I like what you wrote “I am not without spirituality”. It can’t be put in much simpler terms than that.

Another great point you made is “Because energy, they say, cannot be created nor destroyed and can only  change form, I believe that this energy survives and disperses after  death”.

This is oh so true because every living thing has to have energy in order for it to exist. As to what defines “living” is yet to be determined. I think we have yet to fully understand and or  define it. As far as we know the universe(s) could be a living entity. I personally feel it is but don’t think we humans are quite ready to fully understand and grasp this yet.

I bookmarked your page and look forward to do pass it on to others whom are opened minded enough to embrace your belief & philosophies.

All the best, Mike – Fla.

Welcome to all the new people coming from the various Steak & Blowjob Day sites that are now out there!
Enjoy the holiday! ;o)

Remember when I asked people to e-mail me just so I know that they’re actually out there?

Well, some folks did.

And I asked if I could share their words, in the spirit of maybe encouraging myself, as well as others.

I dunno, to talk, to speak up, to post, to comment.

To know it’s okay.

So here’s the first one, from “Lurker Linda”.

————————— Original Message —————————-

Subject: The lurker Linda

From: nunya@goddamnbusiness.com

Date: Mon, January 17, 2011 12:59 pm

To: “Sunny Crittenden” <Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com>

————————————————————————–

Ever feel like it’s too late to speak up? Kind of like you should have known someones name, but you are too embarrassed to ask it after the 5th meeting? That’s how I feel about your site. I have only made about 3 or 4 minor peeps in the decade I have been reading. I don’t have a livejournal account, and I think I may comment once in a while now, but in the past I was very guarded about what I put on the web. About anything. I had an early site experience where in the first three months of my blog (before the word existed) I had a stalker of sorts. It freaked me the fuck out and I shut it down and did not return to having an online presence until facebook in 2004. And I still share very little.

But all that aside- this is what kept me coming back over the years.

I adore Courtny Love and Hole.

I had a fucked up childhood glossed over by appearances.

I have had panic and anxiety attacks

I have had a vacation to the psych ward once or twice.

I spent years leaving my house as seldom as I could.

I have a husband and children.

A cat and a dog.

I like flowers and growing things.

And well, those topics have been many topics of your site. I relate to a lot of what you talk about. I was also fascinated by your cam way back when cams were portals linked on peoples sites. Probably pre-camgirls portals. My friend had a portal and your cam was there. What made me click on yours was you held up a sign that said “sunny” and you were smiling. Every other cam that day was a boring shot of someone staring at their computer. I was also very fascinated by your confidence with the photos you took of yourself. A confidence I did not have. You were the fist person I read who shared the difficult. And it was nice to be able to read what you have been through and relate. I was so not one for group therapy and shit. Therapy off and on…but you were a lot of that for me. My therapy. Reading your struggles…relating. I didn’t know anyone IRL or online who spoke as frankly as you did. Trying to purge my past from me and grow the best I could….you were doing the same thing. I have often said to my husband that I feel extremely weird knowing so much about you, and you not knowing me. Completely my fault.

But anyway. I think you are awesome. I’m happy for your little victories; I have concern when you are down. But I never felt qualified to say anything. I agree, it isn’t right after all this time to not say anything. So, I hope this brings you an understanding of the kind of lurker I accidentally became. .=)

Linda