Well, to my amazement, we’ve surpassed 200 friends on this thing, which floors me, because I can’t imagine 200 people want to know about my day-to-day existence, or even just come for the rants. I don’t think I know 200 people in the real world. Come to think of it, unless I start getting into the people-I-haven’t-seen-for-years category, I’d be straining to name 20 people. Oh, well–hi, all, glad you could stop by!

Camel Meditations
This is an acrylic, actually, 18 x 24, which I painted in one of those defiant I-can-SO-do-real-media-goddamnit moods that occasionally possess me. Now I have a painting of a camel. I don’t know quite what to do with it, other than hold onto it and hope that the one person out there who’s spirit animal is the camel will someday trip over it, preferably right after winning the lottery. I may take it to Anthrocon–it seems unlikely to sell, given the buy-by-species trend, but nothing ventured, etc. I may do another similiar one of a takin. It also won’t sell, but I can have a Wall of Ungulate Art or something.

The title, in case anyone’s wondering, is from a great Arabian legend–the story goes that there’s a prophet of Allah who flees from his enemies into the desert. They’re hot on his heels, but the prophet’s trusty camel carries him tirelessly for seven days and seven nights and finally to an oasis and safety. To reward his faithful steed, the prophet whispers into its ear one of the secret names of God. The camel tells all the other camels, and to this day, camelkind meditates upon the name and looks haughtily down on all other creatures who don’t possess such sacred knowledge.