Browsed by
Month: October 2003

Migraine

Migraine

I find that the etymology of the word migraine—which comes from “half-skull” or “pain in one side of the head”—fascinates me. Perhaps because I have one. Even after Alleve, Ibuprofen and Tylenol with codeine, even after neck, back and temple massages, even after bags of ice have been applied to tense muscles, the pain and nausea remain. And the thing with migraines is, I usually have them two nights in a row, along with night sweats and a great deal…

Read More Read More

Conditional Love

Conditional Love

To no one in particular, Everyone wants unconditional love. I cannot give it to you. If you want unconditional love, go find yourself a dog, a god, or an enabling personality. No matter how neglectful, abusive, or hurtful you might be, you can be sure to find unwavering love from those three. But not me. If you strike me or neglect me, I will not look at you with puppy dog eyes or fetch your slippers. If you kill or…

Read More Read More

Photoshop Tips and Tricks #4: Realistic Preset Textures

Photoshop Tips and Tricks #4: Realistic Preset Textures

Photoshop comes with preset textures like this one, called Snake Skin: These grayscale PSD files are seamless patterns and don’t usually look like much, but that’s because they’re meant to be used in conjunction with the basic Photoshop tools. For instance, you can use the snake skin texture as a texture channel when rendering Lighting Effects (Filter > Render > Lighting Effects) and get this: Or you can load the texture into the Texturizer (Filter > Texture > Texturizer…) and…

Read More Read More

Bad [WD Assignment] From My Writing Past #11: FRAGRANCE (12/7/1992)

Bad [WD Assignment] From My Writing Past #11: FRAGRANCE (12/7/1992)

Funny how Adam never noticed her scent; she smelled faintly of roses, the kind that grew along the border of her herbal garden—intoxicating. Really intoxicating. Another moment of her scent whispering beneath his nostrils, and he’d be swooning at her feet like a woman. God, but how could he have mistrusted her and thought her ugly when she was so innocent and beautiful that it made him weak with love and longing? “Rather cold out, isn’t it?” she asked, her…

Read More Read More