Hello friends, friends, friends... I've got plenty news for you.

Life has been much too crazy for the likes of art for me these days, and most pieces, if worked on, are of no merit to keep. There was once a time in which my art won awards and it was my shining pride and skill, but it withers and dies in my very soul now. It started its decline after my older brother passed on. I don't know if he was the other part of my soul or if I just lost the will or skill, but it isn't working for me. More on this later in my post. For now, life is, you know, crazy. I've graduated (which is an accomplishment in and of itself, given the fact that i got really slack near the end. Still straight A's, though! <3), and I've even enrolled in college! I have no major, nor any clear cut direction in life- my fork in the road is more like the branches and shoots off branches on trees. So many choices... I have a degree of skill in a few things, yet nothing truly refined, nothing of great merit. School. More school. I should become a professional student.

When I am NOT busy with school, I am taking my well-deserved rest and I sleep until noon. When I am not sleeping, i am with my newfound lover. He is a generous friend, a caring lover, witty, different, a video gamer (my silly player 2), and... well, my parents like him, what else could I want? When he's working, I sleep, then workout, shower, and we are together again. He leaves here late at night, and we start again. Being in a relationship like ours is like being a child- having to learn everything. I have had my doubts, and yet now, the most of them seem so far away. He asked me if I could promise to never leave him, if I would promise to be his forever...foolish a child I may be, I say yes. I can only hope my character can bind me to my words, flawed as it has and still may be. Could I break another human? I'm a failed creation of one, but my warped humanity, please, show mercy, I can't hurt a man like him. I give him a word I can make the promise, and when he presents the promise ring to me in front of my parents this week, I will promise this to him... this one, I pray, I do not break. Doubt only creeps when I remember... it has only been 2 months.

While on family matters, I have EXCITING NEWS! As of this fall, I am being officially ADOPTED as my stepdad's daughter! That's right, folks, the man who taught me all about music and the wonders of metal, the man who has cared for me, ups and downs, turn arounds, is now taking me on as his LEGAL daughter. I'm 18 now, thus my father has no say in what i can and cannot do. I choose to live the life of my stepdad's name. my pop. the REAL dad i want to walk me down the aisle (which may be sooner than we think...gulp.) i WILL be married under the name of the man who really cared for me. And that is just what I want.

Now, for my FINAL and MOST IMPORTANT news... I am giving up my art. Shocked? You shouldn't be. I've been enjoying it less and less since my brother died. I've loved this aspect of my life since i could hold a crayon in my baby hand. I knew i would do great things with it. Sadly, i'm mistaken, it is not my calling. I will do great things, but this is not it. I feel no love of it anymore, just a stranger addiction to what i used to love, but now hate...and yet i draw on, my pitiful scribbles. It hardly seems worth it, to fuel what i no longer love. I will be posting up four very flawed paintings in the works, one dedicated to my boyfriend (thinking to title it Finding My Neverland), one dedicated to my stepdad (thinking to call it Paths Intertwined), one to my mom (Serenity), and one to my deceased older brother (Guardian), but only because these are of high importance to me, and the way they come out doesn't necessarily have to be anything...just how I feel when i think of them.

That's all, I suppose.

xx Pixie R. A.