Friday Face (Pic):

Smiling has never been my default expression. It takes energy and effort to create one, exponentially more when there is no obvious reason for it.

This is about as much as I can usually muster, and as much as I'm capable of right now.

Sunday Snapshot:

An edited and improved version of the first artistic picture I took of myself.

These years later, I don't know if I actually am any more confident than I was back then. The anxiety I feel even thinking about all those things I've missed out on tells me I'm not.

Morrissey told us that "everyday is like Sunday, everyday is silent and gray". Despite the weather proving him right, I'm feeling better about myself at the moment, so I will eschew my usual monochrome palette for a dose of me in living color:

#SelfieSunday

"Smiles don't leave scars, no joy stitched across my heart
Love, it dissolves, like a ghost slipping through my arms
Hope lights the sky, a flash drowning out the stars
Faith is the word, we give to define our self-harm"

I doubt I will ever sing one of my songs again. I only started because it was the only way of getting them out of my head, to make them exist.

Now, I realize that was always a fool's errand, and they were only ever going to matter to me.

The pain of singing is not worth it. My guitar is torturous.

Proving the creative process isn't pretty 😜

#ModelMonday, Part II

This was both a photography experiment, and an attempt to showcase the cool spider logo of @vklynne.bsky.social

We'll return to our regularly-scheduled content next time.

There's a nearly two decade stretch of my life where almost no pictures of me were taken. Once I started taking my own, I may have gotten the confidence boost I was looking for, but I also came away feeling a lack of identity.

Sometimes, I'm not sure I recognize myself.

Searching for the right light, and the right angle, where I will make sense...

Just when I thought I was feeling like myself again, I get triggered back into the darkness.

There's always enough sunlight to cast a shadow, but never enough to feel the warmth...

I'm not sure if I stopped dreaming because the impossibility was too depressing, or if it might be an artifact of 'brain fog'. Either way, I miss my old self...

#monochromemonday

It seems the sun has set on my time as a musician. Hopefully, the songs will find life sometime, somewhere, somehow. #SelfieSunday #artnude #nudemodel

As I wrote yesterday:

"My smile's an illusion, a trick gravity has done
And the light in my eyes is just the echo of the sun"

It feels good to have written something meaningful again.