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I’m taking time out for another little whining whingeing rant. Please feel free to skip over this one. Especially since you’ve probably heard it all before. I won’t be hurt if you jump straight to the end – where things get more interesting.

I’ve had it with The Evil Psoriasis. <Stomp-stomp-stomp!> I’m really trying to spare you from the worst of it, but somehow it makes me feel better to complain. At least occasionally. It takes some of the pressure off poor T-Man, who unfortunately shares a life with The Not-So-Silent-Sufferer.

Anyhow, I do feel I have a perfect right to bitch these days. Anyone would complain about cracked and bleeding feet that feel like you’re walking on eggshells. Cramps my style for sure. Plus the irritating itchy-bumpies that have now crawled up as far as my panty line. I’m doing everything Dr Serious Dermatologist says to do and it gets a little better and then – whammo – it gets a whole lot worse. I’m running out of patience. And options. And faith in doctors and medications. And most of all, in myself to heal.

Of course, stress plays a large part in this auto-immune disease. And naturally I feel stressed and frustrated which isn’t helping at all. I need to calm down and relax. So I’ve been knitting but not on my not-so-Happy Legs Tights because who wants to wear anything nice over these itchy, greasy legs. I can’t even contemplate socks for someone else. It just makes me grumpy. Instead I finished the back and started the front of a new Johnny Boy sweater for Stargazer because he grew out of his old one.

And I did this:

My first Zentangle*, aka a glorified doodle. It’s not wonderful but not bad for a first effort, I think. I started off pretty well with the leafy shape in the middle but kind of ran out of steam on the left half. I don’t have the original Zentangle books (which keep selling out at my online bookstore) nor their expensive beginner kit and I don’t believe you need those really. I’ve been finding all sorts of examples all over the Internet to inspire me. Besides the original website, there’s this great tutorial at Joggles (where Barbara made me start down this crazy path!) and this page at Squidoo. The rest you can invent as you go along. It’s fun, relaxing and as addicting as a solitaire game.

Not nearly as hard as it looks either. You just draw a square (or any shape – Barbara likes hearts) and begin with a “string”, a curvy line to divide the shape up into smaller segments, and start filling each one in with a pattern. I, Damselfly-The-Rebel, didn’t even use any of the recommended items. I used a piece of <gasp!> creamy yellow bond paper (instead of nice white cotton rag paper) and a Faber-Castel Pitt pen size S (which is much thicker than the Sakura Micron Pigma pens) and any old HB pencil laying about and just went to it! I’m sure there’s more to come. I need practice to get the shading right and learn/figure out some new and better “tangles”.

Tomorrow is another day. I’ll be off to play itajime (clamped-resist dyeing) with my Spectrum Study Group buddies. Hopefully then we’ll be back to your regularly-scheduled Super-Positive-Damselfly.

ETA (just to satisfy their copyright requirements, though personally I think they're being overly protective. However, far be it for me to stop them from trying to benefit from their work if they can...):

* The Zentangle® art form and method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.