Bitter end of August

I don’t know if time flies when you are busy or if you lose track of the time. I lost track of the days and August was challenging. With two celebrity birthdays and finishing one tattoo looking back I am thinking…was that still in August? I think some spirit or presences disallowed me to feel my true self after the failed blood donation attempt due to pen type because I should have gone into a deep depression or something. My blood is running thick with iron and preparation from what was supposed to be a Power Red donation on May 21st. I have contributed a single unit since my eligibility then and it takes a waiting period of 112 days for Power Red, so the set back is disappointing. I could write more on the philosophy of this currency in time along with how it affects me emotionally, but I’ll save that for when I get to a different milestone in that and my karma journey. Both of these are on hold with expenses at the beginning of September.

Mid September I may be starting the tattoo apprenticeship. I have talked more about it with the artist and have many doubts. I don’t like how it threatens to change other parts of my life that I am not willing to sacrifice. I already have put the culture up on a pedestal with music sharing the spotlight as equal priorities for almost two years has it been? I am certain practicing drawing and making designs along with observation and tracing practice in the parlor will consume all my free time at first, so it makes me wonder if I am getting in over my head or if it is perfect to get my thinking away from this year’s tragedies. If someone out there is interested in a free official tattoo for my first client, get in contact and I can work on your design in my studies. Of course it wouldn’t be the first time I go at anything with the needle as there is practice flesh palettes and I have been told I would tattoo myself before someone else as well.

I don’t know why the end is bitter. The subject of this year’s part in my life has been more challenging than you can imagine. If I traded myself as Ckwal to mix as a girl of unknown age, that is how it might have been with the music a times and in my life and regular work the environment reacted as if we were one. I am afraid it was full of jealousy, betrayal, confusion, anger and self loathing. Possibly over 90 percent of the undesirable and the rest if I could remember, hinting at something too good to be true. Still yet the feeling was it was introduced only to take it away forever. I started to resort to thinking it was a misunderstanding full of errors in communication and manipulation from the enemies and competition, but I was powerless in making any progress because of real limitations placed on my actions. If there is a heaven when we die, I would think this is how you pay for it. If I’ve already been, paying for it now like this afterwards is a shame.

I think the greatest triumph is to get through a year you expected to be amazing that was majorly defeating. Nothing is more challenging when you are all prepared to work for an amazing year and there are no roses in the thorns. That might be an exaggeration, but if you were hiking through a forest of thorns getting torn from head to toe any small flower you saw on the way would have been lost in your mind turning off from the pain and bright red streaking from your body. I presume something is leaving me at midnight.

Finally, I have just listened to the tracks marking BPMs and notes. The software is not working consistently and I am trying to get my money back so I can finish it before my bus leaves just after midnight on the 6th. Reason being my listening will be to save a different MixList. So, I will also be trying to post the one I am working on now soon as well (currently at fifteen tracks).

2 more days

If you can believe it, I am actually punished for sharing and then get accused of taking something with what I talk, write or mix about. Usually the opposite of the dream comes true or it feels like someone else gets the prize. So I’ll hush up with the golden rule in mind and if the opposite of this statement starts happening to me, you’ll probably know about it, be a part of it or had seen it here first. Something I haven’t finished listening to that was posted at the beginning of the month below.

Countdown to September

Three days left to close this week out and the month. I was tempted to move out of my apartment even after some investments to solve some of the problems I am having here. I thought I could get in the hostel or airbnb and go on vacation and still work and end up saving money while figuring things out. Today I finally handed in the rent money order and picked up an order from Home Depot after taking care of the health issue. An unexpected sort of day off that I felt remorse about not working, but it was necessary. So I am locked in to return to Houston after the mini trip and now with limited budget remaining via help from a family donor, I was able to also buy 17 tracks from ‘Pieces I’. With the Chvrches track I already have, that makes eighteen. We were downpoured on today in a flash flood right after I watched three buses go by in between the stop I was waiting at and the previous stop after I gave up on waiting for over an hour to get to the store. I vented around the mall and through the storm to get on another bus in persistence. Right before that I told myself we will wait until I return from vacation to mix. We don’t have enough money and missed work on top of it and then I remember how we still were able to make it in Nebraska with less, so although I didn’t buy those three tracks in this mix that remind me of Nebraska, I think it is for the better to end this dedication series more dedicated. It would be cool if someone enjoyed the aftermath of the mixes as sometimes even the mixing was too challenging for me granted equipment setbacks or changes and emotional roadblocks, but if many of you didn’t like the year so far because of the theme or my selfishness in it, then you’ll be glad to know that it’s only about a week away from over. This dream I made will be out of my hands, but it isn’t like I am kicking someone out of my life and separating them from the music. It will just be like before with that experience on my back. It was only brought to my attention outside of the rare dedicated mix that certain people identify or claim certain tracks for this or that reason, but on a whole it usually was not developed into a character or trait. They were more like levels, planets, things, moments in time that made up the memory of a week or jewels. Transitioning out of this year’s experiment will probably be challenging, but I will try to communicate the process and what I can suggest for other beginner DJs or bored experienced mixers to try if they work. The holidays are usually easy because it is about setting the ambience for a party or usual holiday feel.

Digress (how to make the fourth year of veganism better)

Digress is a word an acting teacher and director used to use a lot in high school. We used to put on some shows that were of caliber to possibly what you would pay to see in a professional theater. I remember not being a leading actor ever so that I could really watch from the wings or hiding on set and feel submerged in the show. I guess this particular director was someone that settled there for who knows what reasons. Many times it’s creative freedom and being able to work a lot of potential from younger students or aspiring professionals in more noticeable ways. Despite the talent in our upper and lower classes and our direction as well as stage management, there was no lack of enthusiasm and when he got into speeches or monologues with us he would catch himself and say, “I digress…”

This year with three years as a vegan and getting out of my comfort zone with foods I’d buy and products I wouldn’t, I am getting out into the places that risk it all – emotionally, philosophically, standards-wise and in concern for principles. I think I am making the opposite of progress. It’s humbling and I might feel like a kid causing trouble in rebellion of my vegan overseers, so fun as well. The danger is running in the opposite direction because although it is easy to become vegan, it is not easy to say, “…okay after three years of sacrifice and research, I think I’ll become vegetarian cause it’ll be easier to socialize and eat-out and make friends and live”. Little compromises hurt like when you discover your favorite granola added a honey product to their line and now I don’t support them anymore forever. They turned around somewhere with that choice when I was loyal to eating their product everyday and it feels like betrayal.

Today my discoveries told me that although Magnesium Stearate may not be derived from animals, pretty much all western medicine and stamped pills are tested on animals. So, even if they don’t believe in it or have evolved to take all the animal products out of them, to be legal, they must have been tested on animals. One lady said, ” Animals first.” So, an unofficial lab could be making it up… Then that is where we are at. Looking into what do you support based on the brand if you cannot make it yourself with ingredients you made or know who made. Owner companies or with a store like Target, brands that contract them to make the products to sell in their stores. This is another place I am pausing with the term ‘private label product’. Can I support them? They say to Target – make this for us, so we are like the boss and let’s say it is animal product free? Target makes it and also makes another private label product with leather. How do view this type of association? A group of vegans could be thinking of how to make their product and get it to the masses and thinks it is an ok compromise to deal with Target this way. Someone like me who likes to say all these sub-companies can’t be supported. However I can buy this independent vegan friendly product sold in Target. I now see a separation in this philosophy even if I digress into the ‘may be it’s okay private label product’ as some of these aren’t Target’s own labels. I found Target on the animal exploitation list because obviously they carry leather in these brands and what-not and I was surprised because they have some of their own brands with their symbol on them that also separate from each other in certain ways. This is a little different than Nike who makes a leather shoe with their brand on it, but makes Target a more guilty party than just selling them. The private label contracted target to make the leather shoe. So, I shouldn’t buy anything Target branded is the usual idea. I have two food containers made by Target Signature brand I have to replace then. Even though Target Signature brand is an offshoot from Target. Should I buy an Embark air mattress though? It starts to look like different companies all using each other to make money in a generally safe arena of an image they are ok with. The more humanistic idea is that we are dealing with so many different people. The Target in Santa Monica, California is different than the one in downtown Chicago. All these products get really distorted from conception to production to distribution to sales. Target sells a lot of in-between brands some of which one site calls ‘fake cruelty-free’. At least they have more wannabe vegan brands however, where some stores could be on a completely ‘non-caring list’ or otherwise ‘otherside’. The ones that don’t believe veganism is acceptable for whatever reason and that certain animals are made for our consumption and health and sport or safety in testing. Or the idea is respect the animal and use every part of it. Outlandish… I loved that cow you ate, I want to wear it in grief. A few companies respond in positive ways like Bic I think it was. Statements along the lines of… Of course we don’t believe in animal testing and especially if not required in the US by law. If we sell products in other countries, then we try to let their lawmakers know and push for change in a better direction… etc… Is it genuine or political salespersonship? Even in politics we can be genuine and honest while still using the right words to make a sale that may not be ‘kosher’.

So running around Chinatown I am talking about living with pain for over a month and one doctor says it’s close to your brain or herbs take a long time to work or you must see the Chinese doctor and drink a custom concoction for seven days all costing another 90$ or so. Getting dizzy from the sharp pain and enlarged blue veins behind my ear I woke up with today, I got the generic brand of antibiotic sold by fairly knowledgeable shop that says the company doesn’t tell us certain sources, but are willing to share medicinal documentation and what-not. I remember from living in Taiwan that Chinese medicine is about prevention and so if you are getting a piercing I guess you start consuming special teas in case this happens, but I pretty much did it to myself. Pretty cruel to put yourself through a month of pain though it doesn’t make me feel any better for this reason. I feared this day would show up and what do the real vegans do? Die or end up like burning man. I guess I wanted to do that this week instead of resort to today’s discoveries when my prayers failed and I am cursing Jesus, demons, spirits and God knows what. I am still stuck at being accidentally gluten-free except for possibly the pills too because of the fertilizer debate earlier. I loved bread and now I could care less. If I were to make anymore compromises I would buy vegan certified Silk Chocolate soy milk which has the dreaded U-D symbol on it and a step further I would be less strict with processing statements for vegan products like Vega mixes because they are probably more strict with cleaning and vegan cleaning supplies versus some of the products I don’t look into as much. I respect when a label is super honest and revealing. I guess the reason for me then was… I am homeless and don’t want to compromise, so why do you? Principles over the actual thing of it. Lately I am not allergic to anything I know of and start to think – what am I eating? when the product looks like it was made for someone who balloons up at anything they get near their mouth. If we get more mystical about the belief… The cows disappear and so do the diary eaters on the next level. Then where you used to see McDonalds, is a vegan fast food store on every corner. Not over the next decade, overnight when you make a certain decision. Certain family members or your girlfriend and your place of work may not exist either. So is that a dream or a fear mongrel? If you are a regular non-questioning atheist type society member, then you may never have been introduced to these ideas, so I put them out there in this update with all the previous lines in question as I battle where to settle or how to make this life better moving into my fourth year of veganism. Striving to be cruelty-free or at least aware of what in my life I am unable to find a replacement for that isn’t and why I must compromise. I saw a billboard when I was looking for a different apartment with a picture of a dog saying that animal cruelty is unlawful. In this context only? Funny how the law makes it mandatory though while we still improve technology. Torture and pain isn’t the only cruel part on this journey. When you decide to continue down this path the cruelty is in thinking processes and where the emotions come from, why you think you are having a good day, what place to you go when you die. Spiritual death, soul death, body death, mental death, lifestyle death. All serious ways of leaving these places. I think the decisions we make toll us. If we turn around, they leave a mark and you can pretend to live like you used to, but it won’t be the same. Some bridges have lose-lose choices and if a pioneer a responsibility could be to make it a place to win moving forward.

Piercing journey update

Flashback to Selena Gomez’ birthday over a month ago right around my birthday. I’ve been messing with this helix piercing since then being advised to leave it in for over a month with throbbing pain and then to take it out and give up on it as my body has rejected the piercing. Between this and the nose piercing which wasn’t allowed at work and putting it back in after work as it was about closed up, the point is that this piercing journey has been the most painful one yet. Tattoos have a different type of pain and sometimes have healing battles, but it is more frustrating than anything when it’s breaking out. Don’t underestimate how much unique pain can radiate from the helix or side (nostril) nose piercing if something goes wrong. It has also put on delay several blood donations. I was able to give only one unit of blood since the first piercing decision and nearly six months later, nothing more. Probably wasn’t worth it when you think about the lives that I could have saved and how difficult it has made my already stressful life. I wouldn’t not recommend body jewelry or say it isn’t a lot of fun too, but make sure you have insurance and enough money for this investment. Also be sure what your job is okay with if you need the income and like your job. Even if things go right you will be tempted by so much jewelry and stretching possibilities requiring new jewelry. Pain can also be addictive when you are a sober individual as well, so watch out! Today I am finally deciding to try to track down a Chinese doctor with vegan antibiotics to get rid of this pain which has at one point covered my whole upper body.

Changes (Tuesday afternoon revision)

I’ve unpublished yesterday’s update from Dallas. I was thinking about how a lot of my adventures may apply to a karma journey, but they weren’t really arts or entertainment. Although I made a stand on cruelty-free matters, I realize many of us must keep some degrees of these escalations at bay in the different corners of our lives (paying job, job of passion or volunteer work, personal life, studies, etc), until able to incorporate them together in health and success. Dallas the last two times has been unsuccessful so to speak. The bus ride seemed to be okay and the first bus trip last visit made the trip, but did they take me to a different Dallas? I dove in with one plan searching for a particular diamond let’s say and came out with a rose. On the way back I kept thinking how changes need to happen somewhere in my life. What is the timing and what are the changes? Sometimes we need to make a move to be more fulfilled in what we do or to solve problems while we know the wrong move or moves may make these worse. I am starting to feel at home in Dallas and in Houston which is different than when I first arrived in Texas and in some ways is like a comfort food. When I visited Austin I felt like I was going to my girlfriend’s apartment, but she was no where to be found. I don’t want to take these developments for granted, nor do I think it is always best to keep crutching on comfort food because you might wear your favorites out and then what? Could all this hard work be gone in a day? I’m not totally looking forward to the trip approaching because it has been too much work saving and preparing for and then it takes work to catch up when I return. How did such a simple trip get so expensive? I will have more to write about however and still have the hope that I will find a missing piece or pieces I am looking for to make the right change or changes in my life. I have found the pieces in the music and in real life we can’t expect them to add up to to a person because we cannot control that and many times it isn’t fair to depend on someone else to be the figure that makes the equation work. I did say at the beginning of the year I’d be talking about philosophy and relationships and may have gotten rid of a lot of those type of posts. As August ends on Saturday Ckwal tries to tweak these resolutions and be more successful in resolving them with four months left in 2019. In this context Ckwal being the culture and individuals you think of making up our continuation. Sequel can be defined as a continuation of a story, a consequence, development or what happens next because of what happened earlier. The sequel to Ckwal’s dedication, virtual relationship, those ideas that kept me going, those events that kept things interesting and those that nearly made it all fall apart. Mix 12 is next, the conclusion to a year’s worth of dedication mixes originally planned at one a month and ended up being many variations and versions some of which are quite different. Simultaneously I am making new MixLists beyond what was originally Ckwal’s Final Mix. My life depends on them because many other things have failed me this year including my faith, following my heart and soul and regular services too (those which you usually just pay for something or go to give something away and they happen reliably). I’d like to add many movies to each month and possibly join the AMC A-List or MoviePass around the holidays. Right now I am continuing the most challenging part of my life in shaping how I work with a cruel world on a cruelty-free journey and a non-vegan society on a vegan journey as the three year anniversary continues through most of September.

Vegan anniversary celebrations continued

I nearly finished those joggers I have been procrastinating on all year. I wrote some descriptions by each picture on instagram. They are bad pictures with this phone being I don’t have a mannequin or full length mirror, so they may only be up temporarily. They still need some extra thread reinforcement. I bought some vegan foods and listening to music for another MixList.

Images lost in server transition. No Instagram account.

Picture of the Month

The ‘Picture of the Month’ is more than one picture as it is a picture of the future. There is this apartment complex, one might call it, that overlooked a huge green area of grass. It gave off the aura of something like Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, except usually without many people. The building itself looks sort of like an art museum. Anyways I was walking away from Central Market thinking I would find something for ‘Picture of the Month’ and discovered something major had changed. A huge construction project already framed out. “Is this a remake on Joni Mitchell’s song?” I was thinking as all I saw was a big parking garage on the lower levels. You can see in the final picture what it will look like as about half of the lawn is now covered up. I don’t have a before picture unfortunately. I guess in this case financial gain and convenience we could say outweighed the apartments presence. To the left of the first picture is the William’s Tower, which is the third largest in Houston. Picture of August is a glimpse into the future of 2020 which is a visual shock at first. For businesses and workers, I have no idea.

Images lost in server transition.

Next month

Looking forward to September, I will first be on the transportation potpourri starting at one minute after midnight on the 6th and finally finishing in the evening of the 12th. There will be bus and plane with layovers in Houston and Atlanta as I take a trip within a trip to Florida from New Orleans. This trip was cancelled at one point and had to involve more people and sweeten the pot with an extra destination to keep it alive. Also in September we have celebrity birthday Parvati Shallow (September 21st) who was on three seasons of Survivor, host of Survivor Live on CBS.com and also a million dollar winner. She presently does limited personal coaching via her blog and is a fairly recent mother. September also is the one year anniversary of the bird tattoo (9.26) and our blog’s future ‘Man of the Year’ Lil Wayne‘s birthday (9.27). He shares this date with Alison Wonderland an old favorite of mine that I am still madly in anger with. Liam Gallagher releases ‘Why me? Why not.’ on September 20th. Today I am celebrating three years as a vegan and going to Dallas where I will continue the celebration. I don’t have anything really in mind to celebrate except trying to capture ‘Photo of the Month’ on the cheap phone camera challenge. Happy end of the summer to you!

Mixlist for Mix 16

Disco Fries – Family Affair
Tiësto – Ritual (Moska Remix)
?ILLENIUM – Good Things Fall Apart (with Jon Bellion) (Tiesto’s Bigroom Remix)
Martin Garrix feat. Macklemore & Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy – Summer Days (Tiësto Remix)
Dino Maggiorana – Saturate and Sickness
Sublime With Rome – Wicked Heart
Laura Pausini – Entre Tu Y Mil Mares
Cole Swindell – Love You Too Late
Selena – Como La Flor
Aeden & Joellé – Miss You (Radio Edit)
Apexape – Tribal Gospel (Extended Mix)
HARDWELL – Retrograde
Maddix – The Omen
? MR.BLACK, Infected Mushroom, SKAZI – Do It
? DJ Gomi, Mike Ivy – INSIDE (Extended Mix)
Jewelz & Sparks – El Toro (Extended Mix)
Felix Cartal – Over It (feat. Veronica)
Lutzenhouse – Touchable (Extended Mix)
Marc Ross – Sugar
Nihil Young, Less Hate – Luna
Ben Remember – Wurkin (Extended Mix)