CREATE.

Created type in illustrator project, 2013

Sun, 05 May 2013 13:28:26 -0400

Created type in illustrator project, 2013

Obama Illustration Study, Ink on Bristol, 2013

Sun, 05 May 2013 13:07:18 -0400

Obama Illustration Study, Ink on Bristol, 2013

wheeliewifee: sasha-smithy: Katie Makkai - Pretty (by...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:44:00 -0400

wheeliewifee:

sasha-smithy:

Katie Makkai - Pretty (by crzylbrlchick)

I’VE NEVER HEARD THE WHOLE THING BEFORE THIS IS BRILLIANT!

I will never not be obsessed with this poem!!!

I made a few collages using the text a few years ago. They are some of my most raw pieces:

http://wheeliewifee.tumblr.com/post/19465453860/i-just-found-these-my-handwriting-is-crazy-and

I love this.

lifescouts: Lifescouts: Fishing Badge If you have this badge,...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:35:18 -0500

lifescouts:

Lifescouts: Fishing Badge

If you have this badge, reblog it and share your story! Look through the notes to read other people’s stories.

Click here to buy this badge physically (ships worldwide).

Lifescouts is a badge-collecting community of people who share real-world experiences online.

I caught my first fish during senior week up in New York at Lake Champlain. It was one of the most relaxing things and something I never thought I would do because I felt (and still do feel) it was cruel.

Capela dos Ossos in Evora, Portugal. 18x24 charcoal. 2012

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 22:06:58 -0500

Capela dos Ossos in Evora, Portugal. 18x24 charcoal. 2012

Oh, Alex. How I love you so. thatnerimonguy: New video! :)...

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:28:29 -0500

Oh, Alex. How I love you so.

thatnerimonguy:

New video! :) What do you guys think?

Casey.

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:38:21 -0500

Growing up we had a dog. But not just any dog. I miss her every day, and I recently remembered that my father wrote a story after her death in 2004. I cry during the whole thing.

SPECIAL CASEY
October ?, 1998 - March 7th 2004

By Antonio Rocha

It was late November 1998 when I began my lunch hour trips to the SPCA in Media. Almost every day, I would stop in to see if any new dog had arrived, that I could save. My kids kept asking for a dog and I thought it would be a nice Christmas present, specially for my animal-loving daughter Amy.

One day one of the women approached me, “Sir, excuse me. I see you coming here almost every day. What are you looking for exactly?”. “I don’t know, but once I see it, I will know.” I replied. “Well… I’m not supposed to show you this. She’s too young to be taken, but we have this special little puppy in the kitchen that I would like to show you. We found her abandoned in Prospect Park and we kept her in the kitchen as our special pet. We call her Blackberry.”

When I laid eyes on her, I knew she was the one. She looked like a little bear, a tiny all black fuzz ball that liked to chew on everything. I let her chew on my finger while I asked if and when I could have her. She was all over me as if she knew she had found a home. “My boss is not here, but let me talk to her and I’ll let you know tomorrow.” After checking me out as a good parent, they agreed to let me have her but I needed to wait a couple of weeks.

I picked her up 2 weeks before Christmas and tried to keep her in my office hidden from my kids. I kept her in there for four or five days but after talking with my wife we decided to give the kids an early Christmas present. I couldn’t keep her in the office all alone after work, even though, I would make several trips to the office to check on her.

I took her home and surprised the kids with the best Christmas present they ever had. They were so happy they couldn’t stop playing with her. Amy quickly named her Casey. She is very good at naming animals, specially all her ninety nine Beanie Babies. And remembering all of them.

Casey went with me to office every day, and she took her lunch hour to also go with me and check on her yard. She was never left at home alone waiting for everyone to come back, she was an office dog. She just loved going to work, and as she grew older, the job never did. Going to the office every morning was part of her routine and she couldn’t wait to get there so she could bark at every cat and dog that passed by, and for whatever reason bark at the UPS man every day. She was a happy dog doing her job, and she would let us know when someone was coming in.

When I got separated from my wife, Casey was my best friend trying to make me feel better. She knew when I was down and needed a hug. She would put her chin on my leg and look up at me with a look as she was telling me something. She liked her walk at night and at times she would insist on going out as if I was the one needing it. She would sit right in front of the TV staring at me and wining to go out. She would win most of the times. And as soon as I got up, she would put here tail up and run to the door waiting for me. I sometimes wondered if she was also trying to make me go out to make me feel better. It worked for both of us.

She cared for all of us as if it was part of her job and always knew when something was wrong. Just the other day, I received a phone call from my son Daniel’s school to come and pick him up. He was very sick with a stomach virus, so I took him to my house. He went upstairs to bed and I had to go back to work for the rest of the afternoon. I came home that evening and Casey sensed Dan was up there and she needed to see him. She kept on going to the bottom of the stairs and calling me as I was trying to make dinner. Casey wasn’t allowed upstairs. Finally, I said, “You wanna see Dan? C’mon let’s go up.” She hesitated as if it was some kind of trick. “C’mon let’s go up, it’s ok.” She ran up to the room, jumped on the bed and licked Dan all over. She put a smile on his face and came back down happy as if her job was now done.

Some of you knew Casey as just another DVBC club member. She did SAG for the Bonker’s Tour, Brandywine Tour, and the Hunter Mountain trips. She also recently attended a club’s board meeting, but along with other members who have attended, she found the conversation dull and declined the offer to join.

Last year she went through some health problems, and she started losing some of her energy. After several trips to the vet, she was finally diagnosed and treated for a severe case of Lyme Disease. A few weeks after the treatment, voila, happy dog again.

Then, early in February it all fell apart. Casey started to vomit and coughing as if she had some kind of stomach virus. I said… “Oh.. great, the kids have it, now the dog has it. I guess I’m next.” One week later Monika came over to visit, and petting Casey, she noticed a lump on her belly. I called the vet immediately and made an appointment. Blood samples were taken and we were sent home with some antibiotics. The preliminary diagnoses was cancer.

February 19^th 2004, a phone call from the vet with confirmation of the blood work. It was cancer, Lymphoma. Her lymphocyte count was very high and she was running out of time. After talking about several options, I decided to call the West Chester Oncology Center and schedule a consultation with a specialist

February 23^rd we had off to West Chester. Dr. Jeglum examined her, looked at the blood work results, and asked to do a bone marrow biopsy. I agreed and waited for the results. Forty five minutes later the news were bad and before she could be treated for Lymphoma she would have to be hospitalized for five days to do the bone marrow treatment. After discussing financial costs and complications, I decided to go ahead and start the treatment. I visited Casey each of the five days before taking her home on the 29th.

February 29^th, she was discharged and an appointment was made for the next Tuesday to have her first chemotherapy treatment.

March 2^nd, we head off to her 11:45 appointment. After the treatment, Casey seemed thankful to be returning home with me.

March 3^rd, she was doing bad, she was down and moving very slow. I called the doctor and was told to bring her in so they could check her out. She was running a fever and a blood test revealed that she responded well to the treatment and the cell breakdown could be the cause for the fever. They kept her hospitalized with an IV and antibiotics. I came to visit every day and feed her, because she didn’t want to eat for the them.

Saturday March 6^th, still running a very high fever and they now had her on three different antibiotics to try to control it. The doctor wanted to do another bone morrow biopsy. I disagreed as I didn’t feel it was going to accomplish anything and asked to wait another day and see if anything changed. I went to visit with my kids around 3 PM and learned the hospital would be closing at 4 and no one would be there until 9AM the next day. I asked to bring Casey home for the night with her IV and they agreed, but I had to have back by 9AM for her treatment. Gave me instructions on how to give her the antibiotics and we took her home.

A busy night. Daniel was playing for a formal swing dance with the Jazz band at the Pencrest High School at 7. After a quick dinner, I was to drive Daniel to school around 6, go back, get dressed and go see his performance with Amy at 7. As I drove to the school, Any was taking care of Casey and she decided to take her hood off to make her feel a little more comfortable. Only one problem, didn’t take her long to chew up her IV. On arrival, my cell phone rings. Daniel forgot his music folder and I had to rush back to the school to bring it to him so they could practice before the show. I see the broken IV and the fluids on the floor. I rush to the school, made some phone calls on my way and rushed back to bring her to the animal emergency room in Springfield to have another IV put on her.

It was now 8PM and I had missed my son’s show. We drive back home and quickly noticed Casey had once again chewed up her IV regardless of all the wrapping they had put around it. After the second IV, the night went pretty smooth and we were able to get some rest. The doctor was also nice enough to let me have two IV’s for the price of one.
Casey was breading pretty hard and I got up several times during the night to check on her. I could tell she didn’t respond to the antibiotics and she was going down hill pretty quick.

March 7^th, I got up around 7:45, unhooked her from her IV and let her out back to her yard. She still had enough energy to do her inspection. She came back up, I tried to give her something to eat, but she didn’t want to eat anything. She just laid down tired as if we had gone for a long run at the park.

We arrived at the hospital at 9AM, she gets out of the car, puts her tail up and heads for the hospital door, as if she was full of energy. She barked at the technician as she opened the door for us.

Christine took her temperature. It was still very high. It seemed like they couldn’t do anything to bring her temperature down and she wasn’t responding to any of the antibiotics. She took a blood sample and did some tests. Bad news, her blood count had dropped again. We talked about the various options and decided that no matter which way we would go, it would only be a temporary fix and a lot of pain. As much as I loved Casey, I didn’t want to keep her around and see her suffer, so it would probably be better to just let go. I think animals are very lucky we can make those decisions for them. And there I was, faced with a very hard decision. I did what I could to help her and now it was time to say goodbye forever. Christine asked if I wanted to leave, but as hard as it was going to be, I wanted to be there with her, so she didn’t think that I left her in there again. So I held her head said goodbye and felt her very last breath on my hand around 10AM. Tears come to my eyes as I write this letter, but I know the hard decision I had to make was for the best.
Christine’s two year old son was right there the whole time eating Goldfish Crackers while all this happened. He sees this thing all the time and thinks nothing of it anymore. At the end, he saw me so upset, he opened his arms and gave me a big hug.

In the afternoon I tried to take a nap but I couldn’t take my mind of it. I decided to go for a bike ride, maybe that
would help. I called Monika to see if she would like to go with me and we went for a ride. I ran into Ira’s group and Ed, on their way back at the park. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of cyclists on the road. There were also lots of happy dogs everywhere, so it didn’t work. To top it off, there was no doggy to welcome me at the door when I got back home.

One thing is to see a dog grow old and finally die, the other is to go from happy dog to dead dog in three weeks and have to make the decision to take her life away. Sometimes life is just unfair.

She started as a special dog in the kitchen at the SPCA, she was a very special Casey to me, my family, and some of my closest friends and co-workers, and she will always have a place in my heart as the most special dog I’ve ever had. Goodbye Casey.

My latest work. Introducing Nigolas Cageberry

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:43:00 -0500

My latest work.

Introducing Nigolas Cageberry

"I’m not brave anymore, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me."

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 23:55:00 -0500

“I’m not brave anymore, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me.”

- Ernest Hemingway (via likeafieldmouse)

So like just realized it’s been like two and a half years...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:08:00 -0500

So like just realized it’s been like two and a half years to the day…. Weird.

Photo

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:57:23 -0500

Still life. White and black conte crayon on 18x24 toned paper....

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 00:35:46 -0400

Still life. White and black conte crayon on 18x24 toned paper. 2012

Tree drawing. 18x24 charcoal. 2012

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 10:30:17 -0400

Tree drawing. 18x24 charcoal. 2012

Skull still life series. (Top) Conte crayon and (bottom)...

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:00:15 -0400

Skull still life series. (Top) Conte crayon and (bottom) charcoal, 18x24 each. Fall 2012

asympatheticway: Today is Amy’s birthday! She’s the shit. We...

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:08:34 -0400

asympatheticway:

Today is Amy’s birthday! She’s the shit. We were ridiculously unattractive in middle school and now we don’t shave for no shave November. I can’t wait for many more birthdays together!

I LOVE YOU EBUTZ

Today is my 20th birthday…. When did two decades...

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:49:29 -0400

Today is my 20th birthday…. When did two decades happen !? This is insane.

Messing around with a new poster idea. Check ‘em...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:39:18 -0400

Messing around with a new poster idea. Check ‘em out !

Like 17.7 million American women, I have been raped. Like 73%...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:35:53 -0400

Like 17.7 million American women, I have been raped.

Like 73% of survivors, I was raped by someone I knew and trusted.

Like 50% of survivors, I was raped in my own home.

Like 40% of survivors, I reported my assault to the police.

Like 94% of survivors, I never saw my rapist spend one day in jail

Not because there was a lack of evidence, but because I was too ashamed to take the stand.

I was wearing sweatpants and had not been drinking. I was not walking alone down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood. I followed all of the “rules” for not getting raped.

Stop teaching women how to avoid being raped; Teach men to not rape

Can’t believe I’m not in Portugal anymore, and even...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:19:00 -0400

Can’t believe I’m not in Portugal anymore, and even moreso that I won’t be going back for another three years.

bradofarrell: “Mitt Romney was born on third base and spent his...

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:19:12 -0400

bradofarrell:

“Mitt Romney was born on third base and spent his entire life thinking he hit a triple.”