Lost Souls

Not surprisingly, today has been pretty uneventful.
I was extremely reluctant to actually get out of bed this morning, but, knowing that my day would be short enough as it is I decided that I should.
From there I did not much of anything, until eventually I got in the shower, threw some clothes in the washer, and headed over to Safeway to pick up some weekend snacks and to hit the gas station and fill up.
Once again it was wet and dismal outside, so I didn’t bother going for a walk, and because I would be spending only a minimal amount of time out in the world I didn’t bother putting my contacts in.  Because it was gray and dreary out, I didn’t bother grabbing either my prescription sunglasses or my clip-ons when I got in the car to head to Safeway, so naturally the sun chose that particular time to make its only appearance for the day (I keep a pair of regular sunglasses in the car for use when I’m wearing my contacts, but I can’t see without some kind of corrective lenses, so they did me no good at all).
When I got to Safeway I noticed a very attractive and very petite young woman with a large and intricate tattoo on the small of her back stocking the shelves in the organic/specialty foods section.
I know from my own experience working in grocery stores that the specialty kind of stuff is usually stocked by employees of the distributor and not the grocery store, so that, and the fact that she was neither Asian, Hispanic, or Middle-Eastern indicated to me that she wasn’t an employee of Safeway.
I couldn’t help but think that when I worked in a grocery store none of the distributors was nearly that cute.
In any case, having no need for…well, whatever the hell they sell in that section, I didn’t have any kind of excuse to try to get closer, not that there would have been any point, so I just finished my shopping and was on my way.
Once I got home I started working on a picture that I’d opted to draw as sort of a challenge.  It’s kind of a challenge in two ways.  For one, it’s kind of a complex image with lots of individual elements that I’ll need to find some way to replicate either by hand or through the use of filters (or through some combination of the two).
The other challenge is that it features nudity (Gasp!), and I’m usually sort of reluctant to draw nudes, for a variety of reasons.
So the challenge there is to overcome my hang-up about drawing nudes.
(Yes, I know I have drawn nudes, but you’ll note that I don’t do it very often.)
After putting some work into it I decided that it’s too much of a challenge (the image itself, not the problem with nudity), at least for today, so I saved it and closed it and got started on another picture.
This one is an original image that I’ve had kicking around in my mind for a while.  It poses some challenges as well, but most of them are things that I’m better-equipped to handle.  I don’t have to try figuring out a way, for example, to draw a wet mirror that’s been wiped dry in some places as I do in the other picture.
And that’s pretty much where I am right now.  I will not get the original picture finished before I go to bed, and it will probably be well into next week before I do (assuming I don’t just give up on it).
Given that it’s been mentioned in a couple of posts and in some comments, I imagine the obvious question some of you out there might have is “Why did you give your soul to a stripper?”
Well, it’s one of those things that falls under the category of “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” and you have to bear in mind that at the time I was drunk off of my ass, and this was the first time I’d ever been in a strip club.
And when I say I was drunk off my ass, I mean it.  It had been a long, long day that started way too early in the morning and involved way too many hours hunched over in the back of a crappy little car that I was riding in with a woman whom I considered my peroxided arch-nemesis, and after going through the bother of a wedding rehearsal and the weirdest damn rehearsal dinner I’ve ever been to, by the time that keg of Guinness was tapped at the bachelor party I was ready drink directly from the tap.  
And I did.
Eventually we made our way to the strip club where I encountered Ivy, a freakily-hot stripper who frightened me more than a little and who I couldn’t keep my eyes off of.
Since it was the only thing that I could take out of my pants and hold in my hand, my wallet spent very little time in my pocket and I pretty much gave her everything I had.
Since that time I’ve been to many strip clubs and had many lap dances, but nothing can compare to the time I spent with Ivy.
She was an artist.
In any case, at the end of my last dance from her, as I handed over what I thought was my last twenty dollars, I said, “Wow.  You are amazing.  You can have my soul, if you want it,” to which she responded, “Okay.”
It was sheer happenstance that, years later, after I had moved to Minnesota, I was in the same strip club, and, passing through town, Ivy decided to stop in and dance for the night.
Sitting on the couch talking to her before a dance, I asked her if she remembered when I’d given her my soul and she said that she did.
I said, “Do you think I could have it back?”
She responded, “Yes, you may have your soul back.”
I thanked her and gave her a lot of money in return.
The next morning I woke up feeling better than I had in years.  It was the strangest thing; I hadn’t even realized that I’d missed my soul.
In any case, that’s the story of my lost (and found) soul, and now it’s getting close to that time, so I hope you all have a good weekend and that you manage to keep your own souls firmly in place.