Emje McCarty's Blog, page 7

invisible me II

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so i talked to my internal family system last night.
i tried to explain to them (because i don’t know who exactly holds the strings here, i just addressed the whole group)
i tried to explain to them that
yes
being invisible was once an imperative
it kept me safe from a violent father & a distant mother
it let me keep my dignity and my sanity
but now
now being invisible is hurting me
how can i find love
how can i find an audience
how can i function in a healthy & productive way
if no one can see me?
i begged them to listen. i begged them to start unraveling those bandages that cover me.
once upon a time invisibility kept me safe
today it is slowly suffocating me.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

the top image is a sigil i did for an “i am seen” spell using veronica varlow’s book bohemian magick.

invisible me

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i’m listening to rewilding with sabrina lynn
a friend recommended it.
& here is another message from the universe for me to let go of an old pattern that is no longer serving me.
i have gotten the 9 of vessels card in my liberation tarot deck four times in the past couple of weeks of doing daily draws. the card tells me that i need to be emotionally honest in order to actualize my most sacred desires.
every time i get the card, i cry, mostly because i DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM NOT BEING HONEST ABOUT.
then i caught myself telling my ex-husband i am cursed (i try not to tell him these things because i worry that he is the one cursing me.)
i lamented that i hadn’t gotten laid in four years & cannot even get friends & family to read my stories. i lamented that i am cursed with invisibility….
but while listening to sabrina lynn i realized I AM THE ONE CURSING MYSELF.
when i was a kid, i had to turn invisible to survive the violence of my childhood. it was done to save myself.
then it became comfortable, so i just stayed invisible.
it’s scary for me to think about being seen.
so i have woven this awesome spell of invisibility that i have no idea how to get back out of.
& then i worry that maybe it is too scary to risk being seen. maybe it is better to stay invisible so that i am always safe & don’t have to risk being hurt….
long story short…i don’t know if i can do it. i don’t know if i can manifest myself after so many (so many!) years of being invisible.

but at least i’m going to stop blaming everyone else for my never being seen.
it’s not you; it’s not him.
it’s me.
my bad.

children of the corn

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the devil is an environmentalist
i am an environmentalist
i am the devil….

the minions & i have been doing a children of the corn marathon.
the first one put us to sleep.
the second one had so many theories flying around in it that i got dizzy.
the third one had the worst special effects i have seen in a looooooong time. long time.
but all of them seem to be going with this theme that the adults are poisoning the world & need to be destroyed. also! he who walks behind the rows (telling them to kill said adults) is not god but the devil.
therefore….
it has been a long time since i have read the short story “children of the corn” as i stopped reading stephen king in 1989. i don’t remember if these messages were his…or if they are being nuanced by hollywood?
being an environmentalist, should i be disturbed? but, of course, i accepted years ago that i am the devil….
no wonder i’ve been calling my children “children of the corn!” all these years.

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images from my self-portrait series the invisible exhibitionist.

that time i was friends with a comic book writer

i wasn’t yet 20 when i decided i should write & draw comics.
so i went to daydreams in iowa city to see what the local comic book store had to say about it.
the dude at the counter directed me to the store at the other end of the antique mall where back copies were sold. that’s where i met paul tobin.
we hit it off right away
though i think he was more interested in what was between my legs than what was between my ears.
he never asked me out on a date, but he did ask me to fuck him. i said, “no.” (fun fact: sometimes i cry when i listen to the song “pretty in pink”….)
nevertheless, we became friends.
though he did not take me seriously, he was impressed that i had finished a novel or five. he wanted to write novels. i wanted to write comics. we would show each other our stuff, but i’m not sure either of us helped the other.
paul showed me the “right” way to make comics, & when i finally got around to making comics, i tried to do it true to what he’d taught me.
then i realized i could make comics any way i wanted to & had to unschool myself.
things i remember about paul:
we both thought we had attractive butts
he once said to me, “if you were a girl…”
he resented me for dating assholes without realizing he too was an asshole

one day i introduced paul to colleen (the woman who had introduced me to cool comics by telling me i was just like maggie in love & rockets.)
they were both like “meh” but then met again some years later and became successful together in love & comics.
me? i’m still alone & barely published…. but at least i’m no longer dating assholes & have accepted that i really am not a girl afterall (though i still have an amazing ass.)

happy samhain

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as was brought to my attention by michael
today is a new moon on the new year (at least to us celtic witches…all witches?)
so it is a total new beginning magic kind of day
exactly the kind of day i need
so happy new year all you witches & celts!

KODAK Digital Still Camera

ive been reading my latest spell book bohemian magick & made this sigil as i try to learn the greatest thing: just to love & be loved in return. (nat king cole sang the original, but david bowie & ewan mcgregor also sing versions of it for the movie moulin rouge…which makes me cry every fucking time i watch it.)

this halloween was cold & windy & rainy & i have yet to light my jack ‘o lanterns, but i will tonight to invite guidance into the new year.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

i am back down to two trick or treaters (down from four) but they braved the weather. then we started watching a children of the corn marathon (but fell asleep before the first one was over.) i always call them “children of the corn!” when i am exasperated with them & they have been begging to see the movie for years. so that’s how we’re starting the witchy new year. terrible movies about terrible children. (you know, in addition to learning to love & be loved in return)

inktober flashback

happy halloween you ghosts & ghouls.

that time i dated a comic book illustrator

i woke up that morning thinking, “today you will meet the man you will marry.”
it was 1992 going on 1993; i was 22 going on 23. i was home for the holidays with plans to move from iowa city to washington d.c.
for the new year’s eve my straight-laced younger sister was taking all us sisters to a hip bar in normal, illinois called the gallery.
the gallery was a bar full of hot guys except for tim bradstreet who was a bit of a troglodyte. when the bartender told me he wanted to meet me, i was all like “him? really?” but i had had that premonition…. so instead of going to dc, i stayed in normal, pretty much lived at the gallery, and started dating tim bradstreet.
i was pretty socially awkward at the time. my therapist told me i had the social skills of a five year old. i had a shaved head & dressed like a boy. i told people i was “gender confused.”
i remember at a party tim took me to, this bitch missy said to him so i could hear, “does she do anything besides smile?”
(i had a killer smile that i may have relied on too much in social situations.)
other things i remember about dating tim:
he thought it was “cute” that i wanted to write comics aka it wasn’t something he took seriously.
he always left me in his car when he went into stores leaving me feeling like a bit of a dog (the canine kind.)
he may have been a virgin before he met me.
& it all ended when he told me i was too much. about a month or two after i missed my ride to d.c., he dumped me for that bitch missy.
fickle men.
my heart was broken because i had convinced myself that he was the one. but then i went on to bone several of those aforementioned hot guys and felt much better about staying in normal.
in all, i spent about a year and a half in normal. tim was forgotten after the first three months, but i did keep a look out for my foretold husband & later left normal with a fiance.
…but that didn’t work out either.

the invisible exhibitionist

i spent, what, three years vomiting my feelings into an art journal & then drawing pictures of myself to go along with each page?
exorcising demons…or at least having tea with demons.
learning about myself & sharing it online because i thought maybe i wasn’t so alone as i felt?
then it all got published by raw earth ink into the collection named the invisible exhibitionist and is now available on lulu.com.

you should totally buy a copy. i might not be a skilled poet, but i am fucking honest & raw.
& my art is unique & from my heart.
so that’s something.

that time i had a one night stand with a country singer

*disclaimer: i have been drinking gin all afternoon because i am trying to come to terms with the fact that my children do not share my values…but that is another story….

one of my favorite things to throw into a session of two truths and a lie is that time i had a one night stand with a country singer.

i had hopped a greyhound from austin, texas to lexington, kentucky after my fiance left me. i had my hair dyed blonde before i left; it was that or a tongue piercing….
i landed in lexington at a job in a pub/club called lynagh’s where i attracted the attention of every man who could smell the desperation on me. that broken-hearted rebounding desperation with a blonde head.
one night one such suitor took me over to the club side of lynagh’s to see dale watson (whom i had seen a time or two while i was in austin.) if you don’t know dale watson, he’s a hot little twangy number all full of spitfire & whatnot. cute as a button. especially in 1996.
anyhoo, said suitor & i went to watch the show & it was dynamite like little dale watson himself. i was decked out in a hane’s white undershirt with cut-offs & sheer tights, wearing men’s wing tips. you know, sexy as hell, right? ha!
after the show my would-be suitor wanted to go up & talk to the band. so i followed him & just kinda did my thing off to the side of the stage, getting lost in my head as groupies crowded around d.w. asking him to after parties.
then, from out of nowhere, d.w. came up to me and said, “& you are?” as if the conversation in my head were an actual conversation.
from there he invited me back to his motel.
he had on a wedding ring & i felt guilty, but not guilty enough, i guess
because I spent the night in that motel room.
little dale watson in his nice & tight boxer briefs going down on me for like two hours because i was too wigged out to relax & just come already….
in the morning he drove me home in the band’s barely running chevy blazer (or it could have been a ford explorer? maybe a suburban?) & i remember he was impressed by my sliding over to unlock his door after he unlocked my door first (quite the gentleman…cunnilingus & opening the passenger door first!)

i saw him again at that club a year or two later…but he didn’t remember me until the person i was with said, “picture her blonde.”

inktober

just for fun i went to see what i had for inktober 27th past.
i didn’t do inktober this year because i forgot
however
i have done inktober most years
since 2016
& in 2016, when the month ended,
i realized that i did not want to stop
so i kept on drawing
(almost) every day
& have been doing so in my art journals
& comics
& other artworks
& everywhere that i can