Mental--Help Me

People care more about things that don't matter, than they do about what does.

A couple weeks ago, Katya's male alter ego Brian had posted online that Katya would not be performing for the remainder of 2018, due to needing to recharge and take care of his mental health.

The message a lot of people took away from this, based on comments I read, was that Drag Race ended up being too much for her and that she was done.

What the message they should have taken out of it was "I'm human. I don't work a 9-5 job. And, I need some time."

When mental health or mental illness is involved, you need to pay attention. Dealing with other people day in and day out, for some is no issue. For others, it's a struggle. And throwing a diagnosis into the fray, well, all bets are off.

I've seen too many lives in people around me, cut short, because something, treated or not, finally won the inner war.  But, we aren't allowed to talk about that. Why? Because there is a giant stigma about having any kind of perceived mental defect. So, we don't talk about depression. We don't talk about anxiety. We don't talk about the days that you literally have to pep talk yourself out of your bed, to go to work. We don't talk about rehearsing conversations in your mind, to ensure that nothing you say can be taken wrong. We don't talk about replaying every conversation you had during the day, multiple times to ensure that whatever you thought you were giving for a message would be interpreted correctly. We don't talk about the days when, for absolutely no reason, you're on the verge of tears. We don't talk about thinking that "Nobody would really care if I were dead." Male on male rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault...those aren't real...

Except they are. The #MeToo movement has begun to bring up the idea that men can be victims too. And yet, people believe that the alleged victims are just looking for their 15 minutes of fame.

The struggles of daily life should be discussed. They should not be shamed. You are not weak for having emotions. You are strong because you have them. If you made it through the day, without harm, congratulate yourself. You earned it.

If you're struggling, seek help. Talk to someone close to you about how you're feeling. Seek alternate outlets for your emotions if needed. Journal, draw, listen to music...or if you're like me, watch Drag Race. Find something that makes you happy. Allow yourself to be happy, even if you feel like you don't deserve to be.

Remember that you never know what kind of a war the person standing next to you is fighting. So always be kind.

Take care of yourself. "'Cause if you can't take care of yourself, how the hell you gonna take care of somebody else?"

Art More

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist.  

I re-edited a photo to create this. 
Shaunna's T-shirts have this as an option
(minus the background.)

Now that I'm an adult, I wonder if I'll ever make money enough to live on as an artist.  And, I wonder what kind of an artist I'm going to be.  This second question is one that I never thought about as a kid.

I spent a lot of time trying to learn every hobby that I could, to see what I liked, and what I would be good at.  I taught myself how to draw.  I wrote stories.  I learned how to sew.  I played the clarinet (badly, but I tried.)  When I got my first computer, and a program that would let me start playing with layers and transparency, I taught myself how to combine photos to make a more interesting image.  I tried my hand at web design (better than I was with the clarinet, but still not very good.)  

I started an online drag coloring
book featuring people who I have
drawn cartoon portraits of.

The other night, Shaunna Rai had a show with Bunny Wonderland, Joslyn Fox and Cherry Lemonade, and a couple of girls from New Hampshire that I don't know.  I had to work, and it would have been cutting it close, to try to get there in time for the show to start.  So, I chose to stay home.  And, I started working on a project.  Shaunna Rai has been posting old photos on her instagram recently, and found some more pictures that she wanted to post, but they needed to be scanned first.  So, I decided to start scanning the pictures, while she was gone.  

About a quarter of the way through the pile of photos, it hit me.  As I played around with the brightness and contrast of the scanned photos, I realized that I've fulfilled my desire to be an artist.  And, photography is just a part of who I am as an artist.  

After hearing that Lady Valerie
Honeywell had a trading card,
Shaunna now has a trading card
set of 4 different cards.
Miss E'on and Leanna Love each
also each have one card.

You see, what I hadn't really taken into consideration is that my desire to be good at everything, gave me more tools than I know what to do with.  And, so while, some things, like painting are non-favorable forms of creation, others have been added.  Photoshop Elements, Light Room and Paint Tool Sai have become my tools of creation...along with the old standby of a pencil and paper.  The computer gave me the ability to paint, without getting messy...which was something I hated in school, and even more, during art school.  Painting meant that I was going to be stained, personally, or that I was going to ruin an article of clothing.  

2017 was a good year for me
as far as doing drawings, like this one
of Lindsey Devereaux.

I have thousands and thousands of photos in my life.  I have probably 10 different SD cards with varying amounts of photos on them.  My cell phone has so many photos.  My new external hard drive houses most of them.  My Facebook pages, the rest.  

With the creation of Shaunna Rai's merchandise line on DragQueenMerch.com, I started to combine my photography and my Photoshop skills.  And, I realized that there is still much that I need to learn.  And, I need to figure out how to break my way through the artistic/creative block that I have put up somehow.  In order for me to get better at my "graphic design" abilities, I need to challenge myself.  Each new task I give myself, or am given, I need to make it a test, to see what else I can learn.

So, my goal, for the year 2018, is to Art More...and learn more.  And, keep myself posting things.  Because the more I do it, the better the chance that the artist that I imagined at 5 I would be will become a reality.  And, who doesn't want to make the child they were at 5 proud?