Animal

 

Green snake coiled around an apple tree branch. This is the symbol for original sin. It is a female snake with a red apple on her head. It is strange how western culture has a short list of biblical images emblazoned on every single persons mind.

Waggles was my sweet little gentle doggy. When I left for college my mom and dad got divorced and my mom got herself a boyfriend.  I came home on a random weekend to find Waggles very sick and skinny. I took her to the vet and the vet told me that she had been neglected to the edge of death. My mom had gone on a trip with her new boyfriend and left Waggles in the fenced in backyard to starve. Waggles died a few days later. I still have dreams about her.

I love Stimpy. He is such a well-meaning meat head. For him all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The world and everyone in it is perfect. He likes 80s toys and board games. He can never figure out Rubik’s cubes though. He is drooling and thinking about saline nasal spray.

One of the first movies I remember watching at the cinema by myself is Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. My mom dropped me off at a summer matinee. I remember the tiny runner lights in the dark and mysterious  shadows walking in and out like airplanes on a runway. I remember finding the movie deeply unsettling. I was very young and it made little sense to me. The characters were hostile and dangerous. And each successive scene was more and more confusing. I had bad dreams about being trapped in Wonderland many nights as a kid. I understand that the book  is about Victorian politics in England and I don’t think the Disney movie paid much attention to that. And what was left is a nightmare of creepy but beautifully designed cartoon characters espousing nonsense.

I love frogs. They are tiny rad monsters that help us keep bugs in check.  All amphibians are endangered and it is our responsibility to help them. They are being killed by the deadly disease called chytridiomycosis, caused by the chyrid fungus, known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. For something that is so common and deadly, scientists know almost nothing  about it.

This is a digital painting of a cute bat monster smiling. His name is Brody. He likes to fly around at night using his echolocation to find bugs to munch on.